What killed Terry Schiavo

[firecat]

...and why we should care and talk about that at least as much as we've yammered on about whether she should have been kept alive after it happened.

therealjae hits the nail on the head.

(Several folks on my flist posted this already, but I'm passing it on in case there are folks on mine who aren't on theirs.)

Comments

[francita.livejournal.com]

Thank you for linking to this! (Found via susanstinson's flist.)

Terry Schiavo

[ailbhe]

250lb is what, 17 stone? And she went down to 10 stone before she got married. And I'm about 8.5-9 stone when I'm healthy, and I'm only 5' tall and I'm a slim person.

What the hell is a realistic weight, then? I have no idea any more.

Re: Terry Schiavo

[sistercoyote.livejournal.com]

A realistic weight is whatever you weigh when you're eating normally and keeping active. IMO, of course.

Re: Terry Schiavo

[therealjae.livejournal.com]

*smooooch*

-J

Re: Terry Schiavo

[firecat]

A weight that you can maintain without bulemia, for a start, I would think.

Re: Terry Schiavo

[ailbhe]

Yeah. But I keep hearing things like "125 lb" which - too late to convert now, but it sounds small to me. And I just know that people 6in taller than I am should be more than 1/2 stone heavier mostly. Is there a number that sounds "average"? Like 250 sounds "big" and 125 sounds "small"?

Re: Terry Schiavo

[firecat]

125 pounds = 8.93 stone

I personally would consider any adult 5' or over who weighed 125 lbs to be on the smallish side. I wouldn't hold an opinion that they were underweight or malnourished without further information.

According to US guidelines based on BMI, an adult 5'6" tall who weighs less than 115 lbs (8.2 stone) is underweight and one who weighs more than 155 (11 stone) is overweight. A lot of us fat activists think the range of "normal weights" is much too narrow and represents only the low end of a weight range in which it's possible to be healthy.

Re: What killed Terry Schiavo

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

i wrote about this in a couple of comments i left elsewhere -- it's astounding how many people in this thread you linked to hadn't even heard of it; what the heck were they reading? not any primary sources, that's for sure. michael schiavo won his malpractice suit based on the doctors not properly diagnosing bulimia!

Re: What killed Terry Schiavo

[firecat]

Most people don't read primary sources. Which probably isn't a good thing. Most media don't relay the information from primary sources accurately. Which probably isn't a good thing. And round and round we go, and what am I doing in this handbasket?

I read The New Yorker (my mother's copy) for decades, and in the past one would expect The New Yorker to do a pretty detailed investigation that would include such information. These days, though, I don't know.

[auntysocial.livejournal.com]

Thank you for posting this. Here is a link to an article by Paul Campos:

http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/news_columnists/article/0,1299,DRMN_86_3639869,00.html