I've seen a lot of people say stuff like this, but it's kinda gross. If you want to criticize things someone has said about their diet and health practices, that's fine (and hopefully, you'll cite sources for why they're wrong), but if you're going to make it about how they look, and make your own diagnosis about their health, that's not really OK.

You don't know anything about the guy's health. He may actually be sick, wholly unrelated to his diet. He could be dealing with an eating disorder (which may be related to his diet, but millions of people have fasted regularly without having an eating disorder...there are lots of ways people cover for eating disorders). And, maybe he's in great health and your beliefs about what "healthy" looks like are wrong ("put some meat on your bones" is not great health advice for most people, but it's a common refrain).

I don't really know anything about what he's said about diet or fasting. But, I know that bringing his appearance and health into it are not shedding light on the subject, they're just conflating appearance with health and well-being in ways that aren't useful.

> that's not really OK.

This kind of word policing is even less OK. It's not "gross" to make a comment about something you see and have opinions about, especially for a public figure. You're not shedding light on any subject, either, all you're doing is being offended-on-behalf of someone else; the world's got enough of that and it doesn't seem to be making any positive difference at all.

The comment I responded to did not add substantively to the discussion, and I pointed out why.

I am not "policing" anything. I have no power to arrest someone or censor someone for being an asshole online. I expressed an opinion about the kind of community I'd like to be a part of. Also, it seems like you're doing what you're criticizing me for. I don't think the world's got enough of minding one's own damned business regarding people's health, body, and appearance, and that having more of it would make a positive difference. This conversation is about the science of fasting, not whether Jack Dorsey looks thin.

> Also, it seems like you're doing what you're criticizing me for.

Sure, but only in a meta-sense to curb the proliferation of the technique. I'd liken it to nuking would-be nuclear powers to prevent further problems.

And maybe, _just maybe_, Jack Dorsey should eat a sandwich.

> I'd liken it to nuking would-be nuclear powers to prevent further problems.

So, when you wrote this, did the idea of using nuclear weapons preemptively seem like an obviously good idea, to you?

> Also, it seems like you're doing what you're criticizing me for.

There is a fascinating wikipedia article about this you should skim when you get the chance: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque

Just as we shouldn't make the assumption that fat people are lazy and gluttonous, we shouldn't make the assumption that skinny people have an eating disorder.

I didn’t say he was sick. I was just recounting my observation. Was literally taken aback by how thin he was.

It’s different when you go on record as a public person in multiple interviews talking about extended fasting. People want to emulate influential people, whether it’s actually a healthy or unhealthy behavior for that individual.

Also, maybe Steve Jobs would still be alive today if we didn’t have this strange learned behavior to not say anything about someone’s health if we think something could be wrong? Something to think about.

Steve Jobs was diagnosed, by his doctor, relatively early, as pancreatic cancer diagnoses go (many people only discover it when they have weeks or months to live, and there are no effective treatment options...five year survival rate for pancreatic cancer is something like 1 in 5). Jobs opted to use alternative treatments rather than treatments that (might) work.

That's a wholly different conversation...nobody diagnosed his condition, or could have helped his outcome, by looking at him and talking about his health on the internet. And, nobody could have diagnosed his condition by looking at him. By the time you have visible symptoms of pancreatic cancer, you've already likely been experiencing pain and other related symptoms, and treatment options are practically nil.

How about we just leave people's health between them and their healthcare providers and optionally their family? It's none of our business, unless they specifically ask us for advice or tell us about it.

>How about we just leave people's health between them and their healthcare providers and optionally their family? It's none of our business, unless they specifically ask us for advice or tell us about it.

What about the shareholders?

I think we are a little too comfortable with people generally taking over-eating to an extreme. A 5’ 10” male’s optimal BMI means a body weight between 130lbs and 170lbs. You’d need to be 110lbs to be severely underweight. No-one would bat an eye if they saw a severely overweight 5’10” celebrity weighing 210lbs.

> A 5’ 10” male’s optimal BMI means a body weight between 130lbs and 170lbs.

I've always found BMI to be a little suspect. I'm an average build 5'10'' and 170lbs at the upper range of optimal would make me look very, very lean (I've been there before and it is just not a flattering look), at 130lbs I would look down right skeletal and very unhealthy.

My personal optimal is 178lbs where I look and feel great, although according to the official numbers that would put me at the lower end of overweight which is just not right.

My understanding of BMI is that it's a pretty crude measure of health in that the numbers are correlated with (preventable?) deaths across an entire population and that's it. I wonder if there is some nuance of health that this single number doesn't capture too well.

Anyways, just my own observation :)

At the same time many magazines glorify obese people (women generally) saying they are beautiful.

Are you sure you are not just used to see slightly overweight people everywhere, and when someone is at the lower end of normal it looks extraordinary to you? I read he is 1.78m tall, that means he could be 59kg (130 lbs) and still be in the normal BMI range.