As a skinny person who eats like crap, BMI isn't a sole indicator of health, but being over a certain weight range does take a toll on the human body. And the obesity paradox in medicine is about warped data - people who are overweight have a lower mortality rate and higher chance of recovery in things like strokes and heart attacks because overweight people get their first heart issues and strokes at a far younger age than people who haven't been overweight in their lives.

If both of us were to get the exact same kind of cancer at the same time and both lose 25 kg in radiation treatments, naturally I would be far more likely than he to die from it, but the odds of that happening are not the same.

I wasn't planning on lying to him, but the problem is breaking out the truth in a way that wouldn't needlessly hurt his feelings.

And his food problem is more about quality than quantity, nutrition dense fast foods - which our mutual meals unfortunately often are since neither of us really has the time or energy to cook real meals - have - have way more calories than the same amount of food in a healthy meal. He's not an emotional eater or anything, but it's a matter of their convenience, habits he learned at home, and being a picky eater who doesn't really enjoy cooking.

If I handle this wrong and hurt his feelings he might just stop eating altogether and be both sick and miserable, which is something he absolutely could and would do. And no, I cannot wrangle his ass into therapy to learn how to handle his feelings better, either. I've tried, and accepted that it's not a choice I can make on his behalf.