The Smiley Smile Message Board

http://www.abc4.com/entertainment/story/Beach-Boys-concerned-over-Wilsons-health/UN2x5BxcC0WmDeeNZ5ft9w.cspx

Hope the tour isn't in trouble and can finish with all five members!!

Story taken from the Rolling Stone article, out of context and exaggerated.

That's what I was thinking, but I haven't read the RS article yet.
Hope this is an exaggeration.

The actual article didn't say anything about Bruce 'fearing' Brian was going to walk away -- just had him saying that Brian wasn't permanently going to be touring with the band because he doesn't like spending all his time on the road. Which we all knew. Nothing here to worry about.

Seeing Brian's weathered face on stage from the film clips I think it would not be unlikely if the last of the Wilson brothers will go before any of the other band members. He looks 10 years older than any of the others. But then again I hope for the best, he still has a strong spirit. One could tell that by the new album alone that he is very much still here. I do have my fears as well. Brian Wilson wasn't made for the stage.

Brian's health has been a concern for the last 40 years.

He's outlived many healthier-looking people.

I care. But I wouldn't worry.

Right now, he seems at least partially recovered from his back problems. The guy is a giant. And is strong as such.

There's a history of health issues in his family. But there's also one of longevity.

Trust him, he's a doctor.

If you read the article, they're actually referring to Brian's mental health and the way he's pretty much always been. No reference to Mike's quotes about Brian's weight, etc. I'm sure the headline was written that way to attract attention.

I like Bruce's image of Brian being like the guy from A Space Odyssey.  Brian, the travelling psychonaut, coming down from the gilded paisley halls of eternal harmony bliss to gift us with songs like "Ding Dang" and "Spring Vacation".

"Spring Vacation" cann't hold a candle to "Ding Dang".  :laugh:

I am concerned about Brian's physical condition, though. Is this the heaviest he's ever been? There aren't a lot of healthy 70 year old, 300 lbs. men around.

It must be difficult to watch your weight while on tour with all of the catering and eating in restaurants. Hopefully, after the tour, Melinda (and Mike? :police:) can help Brian get his weight under control.

I think he was much heavier in the early 80s. He's also a very tall man -- he doesn't look unhealthily overweight to me.

he's nowhere near 300 lbs.

BB King is heavier than Brian and he's in his 80's (and has diabetes) and very much still tours throughout the year.  Of course, no two people are exactly alike but still...apparently it can be done even at that age.  No doubt Brian's recent back issues has prevented from keeping some kind of exercise regiement and that's allowed him to gain a few extra pounds in recent years.  He last looked great in 2008 during "That Lucky Old Sun." 

all he needs to do is go to the Radiant Radish (TM)(c) and he'll be healed of all his ills.Why (you ask) ? Because "Help is on it's way"! (this is a paid advertisment of the Radiant Radish Inc. and they approve of this message)

Enemas too!

This. I bet he is closer to 230 or 240. No big deal for a man of his age.

Yeah he's less than he was in the mid seventies or early 80's/ Even less than he was in 1995 where he was really big.

What would you consider "near" 300 lbs? He's probably right around 275 right now.

If Brian is 230 or 240, does that make Mike Love 180 or 190? Mike's closer to 230 than Brian is.

  The hardest thing in the world can be to guess someone's weight, but Mike probably weighs about 200 pounds and Brian maybe 250-260. Mike has lost weight since the tour started and Brian has indeed been larger.

 While on topic, I'd say Al is thinner now than previously. At one point in the 70's he verged on being slightly overweight. Bruce has also lost a bit since the Grammy appearance and Dave is pretty lean as always.

 Agreed, Brian should take off 25-30 pounds; it would help his back issues.

Mike Love was probably 200 pounds in 1985.

 No way was Mike Love 200 pounds in 1985. Look at the SOLID GOLD performance for "Getcha Back" and the pic on the back of THE BEACH BOYS.

At Mike's height, 200 pounds isn't fat. It's built, and Mike's always been pretty built.

Brian doesn't seem any different than he always has  been other than being heavier.  He's not as heavy as he was right before Dr. Landy got him to lose a lot of weight.  I'm sure he sees doctors all the time who monitor his health.  If he were in that bad of a shape they wouldn't be able to get insurance for him to tour.  I don't think he looks that bad other than needing to take off thirty or forty pounds to make his gut smaller.  That might help his back problems if he had less weight to carry around.  His face looks older because he doesn't smile much.  He looks years younger when he smiles.

I'd say Brian is 250 tops. And 250 to 300 is quite a leap.

I wouldn't be surprised if Al weighed in at right around a buck twenty-five.

Plenty of musicians in terrible health have been given the okay to tour.

From what I've heard, Brian's been moving a lot better than he did months earlier and did not voice any complaints about his health. Hopefully this is an exaggeration and Brian's doing well. A tour like this is a huge feat for any artist old or young and so far they've been handling it pretty well.

His weight is three stone and five. No, wait, I got that mixed up. ;D

Yeah, but I'd think Brian's own doctors would not approve and his wife wouldn't let him if they were that worried.  Melinda seems like she cares about those things.  Brian supposedly takes a few different medications for his mental well being and that requires seeing medical doctors every few months.  He's not someone who never sees doctors at all.  I'm sure they tell him to lose weight too but it gets harder as people get older and with his back problem he exercises less.

I noticed the article misquoted Bruce on this one, he was actually talking about the sequel 2010 in the Rolling Stone piece.

I would bet that Mike is at least 230 lbs. and I'd bet even more that Brian weighs 300 lbs. Brian is 6' 3'', and his neck, arms, and stomach is huge. He's easily as big as an NFL lineman and most of them are around 300lbs. To me, he looks like an older version of the 1976 15 Big Ones Brian.

Keep in mind that NFL linemen are also between 6'4" and 6'6" and that they're mostly muscle, despite being flabby around the gut. Since muscle weighs more than fat, I'd probably put Brian around 275. But yeah, he's gotten really big again. I'd say he's around the same size at 1976, and wasn't his weight at its highest around 300-330?

According to Brian himself, he was 225 in 1998 when Imagination came out (from contemporary interviews).

He certainly could lose a bit of weight, it might help his back a bit, but he isn't morbidly obese.

Also, getting a slightly different hairstyle would make him look so much better. When it just lays flat he looks 20 years older.

Brian looks very overweight to me, and that is terrible for your health. There are so many serious problems that that will cause, back problems, heart probles, diabetes and so on. I am worried about him. LIke it or not, a 200 slightly overweight Brian is going to live longer than a 250 lb obese one. Mike is fat too, but I bet he loses weight by the end of the tour as he is actually moving around some. Brian needs to find some way to exercise besides walking if he can't do that any more. He seems to eat unhealthily(steaks and the like) and needs to make up for that with exercise.

So do I, actually.

In the cantina...

Just let Brian be Brian.

He's not all that overweight. And you can bet he can afford the best medical care and advice that $$$ can buy.

Sheesh...if you think Brian is overweight I hope you never meet me. If you do, I'll challenge you to a 100 yard run. You may be surprised.

Brian's not drunk or high at the shows, he's leading the band at certain points and he's singing better then he has in decades. He may be overweight but no way is this the 1975, 1982, or 1995 Brian. Not even close.

Don't forget that we live in a world where, for many people, being thin (or at least not being fat) is the be-all and end-all of existence.

We are constantly bombarded with the message that not only is it desperately unhealthy to be fat, but it is also an indication of stupidity on the part of the fat person. After all, every expert in obesity (none of who is themselves fat) knows it's easy to lose weight.

Getting off my soapbox (lest it creaks under my weight)...

Brian is nigh on 70 years old. It's normal to put on a bit of a paunch. Does he appear especially unhealthy? He's had some back issues, but he's what....6 foot 5 or something? Any 70 year old of that height is likely to have some back problems. Otherwise Brian looks in fair health for someone of his age...that's without considering his past.

I do not consider obesity to be 'stupidity' at all. that's ridiculous.

 I just know that obesity carries with it very serious health problems and shortens life. This is not some sort of society-pushed message pushing people into 'unhealthily' worrying about their weight.

 It is a scientifically proven fact.

I would be VERY surprised if Brian's no-doubt top-notch doctor DOES NOT* tells him the same thing. Yes, hes seventy; yes older men develop a paunch. But he looks seriously heavier than 2008. Look, I hope he enjoys his life too, and maybe he just doesn't care, if so, well, what can  you do. But to argue that his weight is healthy is just, well, incorrect.

Also if you look at your average 80 year old, I think you find that there are very few as fat as Brian. Not saying there are none. But the fact is that obesity will get you sooner or later(sooner if your genes are bad.) Again, this is not a judgement. It's a scientific fact.

*for some reason when I first wrote this post I neglected to put those words in.

275 doesn't sounds like an exaggeration for Brian recently :( keep in mind the guy's height, too. 275 on Brian is gonna look a bit different than 275 on a guy who's 5'10. Still, 275 is pretty high.

Important sh*t right hurr, I realize, but still. Don't really care about his appearance, just hope the d00d is doing well.

That's a fairly big spare tire he's carrying around.  It doesn't matter who your doctor is, one day, unannounced, something bad will happen to you, stroke, heart attack, etc. 

Exactly. It's a bit more than a paunch. I don't want to guess his weight, as it's true that at his height a bit more pounds is natural. But I think it's clear that he not just 'overweight' but obese. I mean, if he's enjoying himself, fine, but he will last longer if is in shape, most likely. Yeah, he's going to die regardless. it really just depends on how much longer he wants to be around for his kids, I guess. And all of us are going to shed some tears the day that guy goes, I'm sure. Not that he really owes us anything, of course.

 I'm sure his doctor tells him the same thing. So what's the problem? I'm not saying he's stupid, but that his weight is unhealthy.

Yes, a lot of guys Brian's age have a "bit of a paunch," but what Brian has is more than just a bit. I'm guessing Brian's doctor has warned him about the dangers of carrying that much weight, particularly with his history, which probably already put a considerable strain on his organs. Hopefully the weight just had to do with the lack of exercise due to his back issues. I remember someone (Billy Hinsche?) describing how Brian suggested they go for a walk together, and it turned out they walked for a couple of miles. Billy couldn't believe how athletic Brian still was. That was a few years ago. Now that Brian's back appears to be better, maybe he's walking more and taking some of the weight off. People often gain weight as they get older, but no matter what age you are, it's never a good idea to be obese.

I don't think anyone in this thread is criticizing Brian-- it's just concern for his health.

I can well believe he was walking two miles. When I was at my most overweight I could easily walk 10 miles on a day off!(And I did and pretty soon I wasn't that overweight.) I can understand that he might have some problems, but surely there is some cardio-vascular exercise he could do. At heart he's still kind of a jock, even if he is equally kind of an artsy-fartsy weirdo at heart. My point is, I want to the dude to be healthy and I'm sure he'd prefer it on some level as well.

No, two miles isn't a lot. I should try to find the anecdote, but I think what impressed Billy (or whoever it was) was that Brian was a complete contrast from the slow, lumbering guy he is often on stage. He was walking really fast and Billy had trouble keeping up. I think I'm remembering that right.

They need to hire Tommy to take care of this weight issue!

Melinda: Brian, what did you just take?
Brian: It's something Tommy gave me. It's supposed to help me lose weight!
Melinda: Something Tommy gave you?! Brian... what is it?
Brian: It's just paper. It's just a piece of paper.
Melinda: Brian!
Brian: Melinda, where is my moog? How do you expect me to do a show without my moog?!?!

Tell that to Sir Winston Churchill.

Now I am not arguing that being fat is good for you. The statistics do show that there are increased risks of various illnesses and conditions. But I would also say that Brian isn't incapable of looking after himself and he will have the best medical care/advice that money can buy. Brian has survived a lot, he is a robust guy. I'm just saying that there is probably no need to worry about his spare tyre.

I am a little concerned about the fact that he looks 10 years older than he did 5 years ago. But then the dude is nearing 70. He's more active than most 70 year olds.


None of us is privy to his medical notes. We don't know what is weight is. For all we know, his heart rate, blood pressure and blood work all show him to be in good condition.


I think you are overdoing the scientific fact thing. What gets us in the end is death. Brian's only outward sign of ill-health has been his back, which is hardly surprising for an older man of his height. Anything else, such as the effect his weight might have on his health, is entirely conjecture.

Didn't Brian (or someone around him) recently say that he is taking a medication for his auditory hallucinations which is so dangerous that it needs constant monitoring?  I looked up the med, and substantial weight gain is one of the side effects.

I agree with you that he is a big boy and can take care of himself. I don't agree that there is 'probably no reason to worry about his spare tire.' Other than the fact that ,ultimately, it isn't our business, I suppose.
I'm sure the 'best medical care/advice money can buy'* would agree with me. He has already said in an interview that he was 'pre-diabetic.' That's not something you just blow off.

Yes, his medication does cause weight gain. Which makes it more tragic for me because that coupled with the bad back might truly make it out of his control. He looks better in recent days, I think though. I think the tour is doing something good for him. I hope.

*Eugene Landy and michael Jackson's doctor spring to mind as examples of why a certain skepticism should accompany this 'surety.'

While not a lot of spring in his step last night, neither was he shuffling his feet last night. I think his back is better than it was last month.

This hadn't even occurred to me and is likely part of the cause. The guy's diet isn't said to be the best, sure, but lots of medications for mental health issues cause weight gain. I gained 60 fuckin' pounds while on Paxil for a little less than a year, so yeah. Wouldn't shock me if Brian was on something a little more hardcore, and those can be even worse - I was prescribed a temporary dose of Zyprexa (which is what Wesley Willis was on - think about that in terms of what it can do for someone's weight) and didn't even want to take those for three days because of all the side effects, which include rapid weight gain and even diabetes if taken for even as little as a few months (and we know Brian is pre-diabetic, or was a few months ago).

I don't think he is overdoing the 'scientific fact thing.' Being obese is really bad for one's health. That's science fact.

There are many other factors. I am not arguing that it is in any way good to be fat, but it is not always bad. Everyone's body reacts differently. Brian is made of strong stuff to even be here today.

The comments about medications may well be right on the button. Many chemical treatments for depression (which is one of Brian's illnesses AFAIK) make it more difficult to lose weight or even make the body more likely to gain weight.

I agree from what little we know it doesn't look like Brian is a health food person these days, he mentions steak restaurants etc. But nor is he on a diet of birthday cake. He doesn't look especially unhealthy to me for a man pushing 70.

What does concern me slightly is that he looks 70 now. Five years ago he barely looked 60. Brian has apparently aged a lot in the last 5 years. But I don't know Brian Wilson, I've never actually seen him outside of a concert situation. So really any comment is pure guesswork.

There is no such thing as 'a scientifically proven fact'. Science doesn't deal in proofs.

You're also wrong. Statistically, 95% of people who lose weight by dieting go on to put it back -- and more -- within five years. There's actually no long-term way to lose weight successfully. Trying to lose weight is actually a very good way to make yourself unhealthy.

BUT it has been shown that focusing on health rather than weight can lead to positive clinical outcomes -- that many of the health problems associated with weight increase can be ameliorated *without losing the weight*. See for example http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3041737/


You're sounding like Brass Eye now -- "there's no actual evidence for it, but it's a scientific fact". To quote the paper I linked above:


So if you're "overweight" or "obese", statistically you're *less* likely to die. That's not a 'scientifically proven fact' -- there is no such thing -- but it *is* the most accurate information we have.

If you're going to make scientific claims, at least bother to spend two minutes looking for the actual data.

Well, semantic quibbling aside, I think only on a Beach Boys board would people argue, apparently, that being overweight and pre-diabetic is, in fact, not bad for you. I guess I'm going to stay saying: it is bad for you. And by bad, I mean its unhealthy.

Yes there are other factors. No one said that there weren't.
For example, getting plenty of sleep is good for you. Maybe Brian gets plenty of sleep. However, he is still obese--not 'a bit overweight'-- and pre-diabetic. Most people, even those who qualify as 'the best care that money can buy' would say that those are unhealthy 'factors.' And pretty significant ones. The fact--or whatever we want to call it, being careful here!--that most people who lose weight gain it again is rather irrelevant, in my opinion. Or, rather, I'm not grasping the relevance.

But I'll concede that being overweight doesn't necessarily mean that one is unhealthy. However, since he is overweight AND pre-diabetic, that sort of leads me to presume that Brian is not healthy.

And come now. Anybody can google any thing that supports an argument like this. I won't bother to post links to the hundreds of thousands of articles, studies, statistics, etc. that support my thesis that, generally, obesity is unhealthy and causes health problems.

 And I have spent a good deal more than two minutes looking into this. Rather weeks and months.

 But, well, you believe what you want. Fat people live longer, or something. I'm pretty sure that the 'best medical care/advice money can buy' is going to be on my side, though.

Here: this will only take two minutes to read.http://scienceblog.cancerresearchuk.org/2009/10/16/can-being-overweight-be-good-for-you/

 For you:

There are studies like the most recent Japanese one, saying that being overweight increases lifespan or reduces the odds of dying early. However, there are others that show the opposite. A Swedish study that we blogged about before showed that being overweight as a teenager increasesd the risk of an early death by the same extent as smoking one to ten cigarettes a day.

The big picture

When some studies say one thing and others say another, it’s useful to look at the evidence as a whole and see what picture it paints.

And one group of scientists has done just that, pulling together the results of 57 different prospective studies across Europe and North America. Together, the studies looked at the health of over 894,000 people, making this the best evidence to date on the effect of obesity on death.

The researchers found that the optimal BMI was 22.5, which sits in the middle of the healthy range (18.5 to 25). At this point, the odds of dying prematurely are at their lowest, providing powerful support for the importance of maintaining a health body weight.

The results of this analysis are particularly strong because they’re based on such a large number of people. For comparison, the sample size in the most recent Japanese study was around 20 times smaller. Larger samples make it less likely that results are influenced by chance or biases that might skew the results.

’s also important to note that most of the studies we’ve discussed in this post have looked at the links between body weight and premature death. But it’s not just the quantity of life that matters but its quality.

Many of the conditions and diseases that are caused by obesity, including heart disease and diabetes, can often be successfully managed or treated. But that doesn’t mean that they should be ignored.

So it’s also important to look at whether being overweight or obese increase the risk of developing diseases rather than just dying from them. And certainly, when it comes to cancer, that evidence is very clear. After being a non-smoker, keeping a healthy body weight is one of the best ways of stacking the odds of avoiding cancer in your favour.

Being overweight and obese increases the risk of many different types of cancer, including some of the most common (breast and bowel cancers) and some of the most difficult to treat (cancers of the pancreas, gallbladder and food pipe (oesophagus) to name a few). In fact, as more large studies are completed, the list of cancers that are affected by body weight grows ever larger.


Eh. Science, schmience. Load up on the steak and birthday cake, Brian! Dr. Hickey says it's OK!!

No, as I just showed you, it's *not* only on a Beach Boys board where people would argue that being overweight is not bad for you (I said nothing about being pre-diabetic -- that's a term that can mean many things, some of them very bad, some not). It's argued in the Nutrition Journal, as I linked. And the American Journal of Epidemiology (http://aje.oxfordjournals.org/content/147/8/739.long -- shows that the second-highest quintile for weight is the category with the lowest mortality rate, while the highest has a very slightly higher than average mortality rate, but still much less than for example the thinnest people). And the International Journal of Obesity And Related Metabolic Disorders (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8788324 - "This quantitative analysis of existing studies revealed increased mortality at moderately low BMI for white men comparable to that observed at extreme overweight, which does not appear to be due to smoking or existing disease.") . And Obesity Reviews (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17212795 - "These calculations indicate that a BMI in the overweight range is not associated with a significantly increased risk of mortality in the elderly, while a BMI in the moderately obese range is only associated with a modest increase in mortality risk"). And Social Science And Medicine (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20226579 "Among adults age 55 and older at baseline, the risk of mortality was actually reduced for those were overweight (hazard rate ratio = 0.83) and those who were obese (hazard rate ratio = 0.68), controlling for other health risk behaviors and health status").

ALL the science -- actual science, not just people talking rubbish on message boards -- points the same way. Being 'overweight' is correlated with being slightly healthier than average. Being 'obese' has a *very slight* correlation with being unhealthy, but that correlation is the same as the correlation between obesity and inactivity, and goes away with exercise and low stress levels. Someone at the lower levels of the obese range of weights, who is normally active (as Brian is, other than his recent back problems) is simply not at any significantly greater health risk than anyone else.

And given that, maybe it would be best to leave the concern about Brian's health to people who actually have a clue what they're talking about -- namely Brian's doctors, who unlike us know what his actual medical condition is?

The single study they point to that says that (as opposed to the other studies they link to, which you cut out of your quote, and which say "combined, obesity and being overweight actually led to a net reduction in the number of deaths, to the tune of 44,000 per year.") does definitely point to weight being correlated to excess mortality. Unfortunately, there's no easy way for me to tell if it's accurate or not. The paper doesn't actually set out how its data is collected, it just says that it's collected the same way as two other papers -- unfortunately, both those other two papers are behind Elsevier's paywall, and I don't care enough about this discussion to pay actual money to see the evidence.

Collection methodology in meta-analyses is *hugely* important (I'd point you to my own paper on the subject, S Hickey, A Hickey, L.A. Noriega Implications and insights for human adaptive mechatronics from developments in algebraic probability theory. Presented at the EPSRC UK Postgraduate Workshop on Human Adaptive Mechatronics (HAM), Staffordshire University, 15–16 January, 2009, but I don't believe there's an online copy at all), and given the way it can distort studies I'm not minded to accept as reliable a meta-analysis whose collection methodology I don't know. But that's me refusing to pay to look at the evidence, not saying that the evidence doesn't exist, and so I'll bow out of the discussion -- I still think I'm right, but not enough to spend money on it.

I for one would be very wary of any study purporting to say that any range of BMI values has any impact on health.

BMI was not designed to be, and never has, been an indicator of health. It can be hugely skewed by muscle growth....for example every sporting rower or rugby player would come out as 'obese' or even 'morbidly obese' according to their BMI when they are among the fittest people around - as anyone who has ever tried rowing will attest.

Two people with an equal BMI can have massively different body fact content.

It is also worth noting that until recently, most research into obesity was directly sponsored by the weight loss/diet industry and (surprise) came to conclusions which supported buying dieting products. If the diet industry actually worked, there would be no diet industry. It's like the never-ending light bulb....if it were ever invented, no company would market it.

Bariatrics is probably the only line in 'medicine' where people look at a photograph of a person and not only diagnose them but also prescribe treatment.

This is the first post in this thread that has actually made any sense. Reading through these posts has been like my worst nightmare, I don't even know where to start. I hate even seeing stuff like what's been posted here, because I feel obligated to correct it, but I don't want to come off like some pushy asshole. I'll just keep it to a minimum and if anybody wants to further the discussion we can move to the nutrition thread I made in the sandbox the last time this sort of thing came up.

The above poster was correct in pointing out what a faulty statistic BMI is. The article that Andrew Hickey quoted a few posts up lost all creditability in the first sentence when it defined BMI as body fat. BMI and body fat are two totally different measurements. BMI is simply height divided by weight, body fat percentage is the actual measurement of subcutaneous fat mass compared to lean mass. As noted above, BMI can be skewed by muscle mass and also by someone who is "thin" but not lean. BMI is the worldwide standard for measuring obesity simply because it is the easiest. All your doctor or insurance company has to do is weigh you and look at a chart and put you in a category. Japan has moved to using waist-to-hip ratio as their standard obesity measurement, and hopefully the rest of the world will follow. While it's not quite as telling as body fat percentage, it is cheap and easy. Body fat can be cheap and easy, but you have to have a qualified person measuring, so it's something that probably will not become part of a routine physical anytime soon.

I don't mean to be a know-it-all dick about this kind of stuff, it's just so hard to see all the bad information going around, when the good information is there and so simple if you take the time to understand it.

Amazing how some of you Americans wouldn't call Brian obese  :o I guess so many people are obese in the USA that people don't know what IS obese anymore...

(note how I said 'some', no offense meant!)

There actually is some truth to this. The charts American doctors use to measure children are based on percentiles and adjust based on NHANES data every 6 years. When you take your kid to the doctor, they tell you what their measurements are in relation to where they fall based on the averages. Parents get a skewed view of their child's health because they are told that they are in the 50th percentile, so they say "Johnny's normal, everything is perfect." When, in reality, what's average now is 30% heavier than it was for children's weight 20 years ago.

Well I will be snotty here and say; he lives here. so we'll call him however he fits in with us Americans. Amazing the sh*t that gets talked about in here, whether it's our business to know or not. Brian, as well as anyone else in this world will weigh and look however they feel like. Let Brian and his doctors worry whether he is unsafely overweight or not,

I get tired of reading this debate.  I'm not going to go around telling people what they should weigh or what they should eat.  Given that no one here knows Brian that won't work anyways. 

I read the 'or' in that sentence as saying something like "or for that matter amount of body fat" rather than as an explanation of the meaning of the term BMI. I agree though that it's at best ambiguously worded and if read as you've read it it's flat-out wrong.

Well, to lighten things up a bit, this all gives "Brian's Back" a whole new meaning.

(As in "Brian's Back...is sore, and it's bugging him." Wink wink. Get it, get it?)

Now that you point it out, I suppose they could have intended it in the way you're saying, but either way it's still a little questionable.

The fat vs. fit debate is endlessly interesting to me. They do great work along these lines at the Cooper Institute in Dallas. A person's weight alone does not determine how fit or how healthy they are. This line of thinking leads a lot of skinny people to believe they don't need to take care of themselves. At the same, this shouldn't be an excuse for people who are overweight to not be physically active or to think it doesn't matter what they put into their bodies.

While it's not the most important factor, weight certainly is a factor in things like heart disease and diabetes. The biggest danger is visceral fat, the kind that lies between your organs that you can't really see. Too much visceral fat around the liver can effect hepatic metabolism, which lowers insulin sensitivity. There are multiple studies that look at this link, but I would have to look them up. I did quite a bit of research on this during my masters program.

There isn't as clear of a link to body fat and heart disease. The obvious argument is excess body weight leads to high blood pressure (because you're heart has to pump harder to get the blood all the way around), which can damage the vessels, which can interfere with nutrient delivery or cause clotting, which could lead to heart attacks or strokes. Atherosclerosis is the more common cause of cardiovascular disease though, and there is no specific, direct link to body weight or stored body fat and hardening of the arteries.

Overall, the key is being healthy. If you're physically active and eating right, you give yourself the best chance, no matter how much you weigh.

Exactly.

I recall an interesting health plan being advocated in the mid-to-late 60s that consisted of:

1. Maintaining a generous intake of calories
2. Allowing for long periods of rest
3. Maintaining good dental health
4. Partaking in exercise, such as jogging
5. Being involved in a large number of activities.
6. Avoiding inactivity.

If I recall correctly, the people proposing this plan put in far simpler terms.  They sang it, too.

I for one would like to get to the real issue at hand: is he, or is he not, taking good care of his feet?

He'll feel better when he sends in his letter....

H.E.L.P. is on the way. 

Brian didn't seem well tonight at Jones Beach, NY. He hardly smiled and looked miserable. Jeff, who is obviously Brian's babysitter, kept giving him concerned looks.

The man has his off nights.  It's the last night of a three night run of shows so it's not surprising.  Let's hope he has a good day off and is ready for the next run of shows. 

Apparently, Brian had another procedure to correct his issue with his lower back.

Just posted by Brian on his FB:


Hi all,

I’ve been reading the posts where some of you are concerned about my health in general.

I want to let you know that before the Beach Boys 50th tour started I was having some lower back issues right around the time we performed on the Grammys in February. This is the same type of problem that Carl used to suffer from, it's hereditary. But being able to tour with the Boys again meant so much to me that I wouldn't have missed it for the world. Luckily, I was able to get this new cutting edge procedure that totally worked. But after this last run in Australia it came back and I had the procedure redone this week.

I feel so much better already and can't wait to get back to my second home, London!!

See you soon

Love & Mercy

Brian Wilson

That's nice to hear..

I saw the first few lines on twitter on took a deep breath. I was worried it was going to be something serious regarding Brian's health

My dad is 62.  He's about the same height as Brian.  My dad is somewhere around 230 (I think)...he could probably stand to drop a few pounds...but I think it's pretty typical for an older male Baby Boomer.  Brian was far heavier in the early 80s.  I agree, though, that it could help is back problems if he were to loose some weight.

Personally I think it's a good thing that Brian in his advanced years still works.  Everybody should have a job that they love and don't mind doing for the rest of their life... plus in Brian's case since image is such a big part of being a celebrity, I'm sure he keeps it toned down at least a LITTLE bit since he knows the cameras are on him.  Who knows what shape he'd be in if he didn't have to do public appearances!