Medicine, media, and culture constantly inform us it’s unhealthy and unacceptable to be overweight. We’re a country of mostly overweight people who constantly plan our next diet, go on a diet, or recently failed at or gave up on our last attempt at dieting. And whether we’re “on” or “off” program, we hold ourselves up to some pretty unattainable and unrealistic goals.
You know that nice lady who’s petite, big boned and chubby, yet convinced she’ll turn into Angelina Jolie or at least America’s next top model if she can just stick to that latest fad diet. Our national ideal of a perfect body is totally unattainable to most of us.
And this is despite the fact that the ideal rarely exists in nature. Nobody’s perfect - no body is perfect - and even actresses and super models don’t look like their Photoshop doctored images we see in the media. They only look glamorous and perfected with the help of professionally applied make up, lighting, and digital manipulation of photography.
Recently a size four model was told she was too obese! The teen model “ballooned” to a size four and was told she was too fat.
Even drop dead gorgeous Faith Hill is not “good enough” by today’s standards. Her image appeared on the cover of the July 2007 issue of Redbook magazine and showed a “heavily re-touched” and thinner photo of the singer and actress. Redbook was called on the carpet and accused by many of contributing to an unattainable body image only existing by creating a digitally re-touched image.
Frankly, I think she looks prettier and healthier in the original photo (right).
These kinds of expectations and pressures to look a certain way are unhealthy and plain insane.
On the other side of the “unachievable image” coin, our society ironically suffers from a very real obesity epidemic. While we covet and chase thinness our idea of the ideal body shape is steadily growing thinner, yet we keep getting bigger. We have a wicked case of body image schizophrenia.
Co-morbidities like type II diabetes, heart disease, and some cancers are more prevalent in the overweight and obese. Our quality of life is affected by being overweight in myriad ways including fewer employment opportunities, less pay, less desirable mates, and under-treatment from medical professionals. Obese people even experience subtle and outright prejudice from sources as unlikely as other overweight people. (“I may be 250 pounds, but you’re 400 pounds.”)
Oddly enough, despite our obsession with thinness, there is evidence that sometimes bigger is better. A BMI under 25 isn’t always a golden key to good health. And despites the risks of developing some diseases and suffering certain prejudices and missed opportunities by being fat, sometimes it’s better to be just that.
I am not suggesting everyone drop their diet and fitness goals and pick up an extra large platter at the all-you-can-eat buffet. Nor am I suggesting we forgo the gym and pursue couch potato-ism. The majority of us can and will benefit from a lower weight and BMI, losing body fat, and getting fitter though exercise.
But it is high time we stop acting like anyone who is not size two and does not look like a 20 year old fitness model is a second class citizen. Prejudice of any kind is wrong. And the vast majority of us will never look like s super model or fitness model no matter how much we work out or eat healthy. Our personal genetics and body type will not morph into something they're not.
Instead of judging others about their weight and appearance it's time to turn our attention to improving ourselves. And sometimes people are better off being at a higher weight than our society sees as acceptable. When it comes to weight and body image it's time for us to embrace self-acceptance as well as tolerance of others.
Check out the articles below.
Obesity Seen Protective in Cases of Heart Failure
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Overweight and obese patients with heart failure seem to have a lower risk of dying than their normal-weight counterparts, according to a review of published studies involving more than 28,000 heart failure patients who were followed for an average of nearly three years. There is evidence, Dr. Antigone Oreopoulos told Reuters Health, that a normal body mass index (BMI) "is likely not the ideal BMI" in people with heart failure, which occurs when the heart loses its ability to pump blood efficiently.
Oreopoulos, from University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada, and associates reviewed nine studies that examined the impact of BMI on mortality. They pooled the data to estimate the risk of death in patients who are underweight, overweight or obese compared to patients with a normal body weight.
According to the researchers, patients who were overweight or obese were less likely to die during follow up compared to their normal-weight peers. Being overweight or obese "remained protective" against death in a "risk-adjusted" analysis.
Heart failure patients who had a normal weight or who were underweight had the highest death rates. "It remains unknown, however, if higher body fat levels are actually the cause of better outcomes in patients with heart failure," the researchers note in the American Heart Journal. Read more.
Weight Loss, Not Weight Gain, A Health Risk For Older Adults
ScienceDaily (Apr. 10, 1998) — Being overweight later in life does not pose a significant risk to your health, according to findings of a comprehensive study published in the April issue of the American Journal of Public Health. On the contrary, it appears that weight loss is far more unhealthy in those 65 and older.
A team of researchers led by Dr. Paula Diehr, professor of biostatistics at the University of Washington School of Public Health and Community Medicine, studied a group of 4,317 nonsmoking men and women aged 65 to 100 to examine the relationship between body mass index and mortality rates in seniors. All participants were involved in the Cardiovascular Health Study, a population-based, longitudinal study of older adults designed to identify risk factors for heart disease and stroke. Persons who were wheelchair-bound or receiving hospice treatment, radiation therapy or chemotherapy for cancer were excluded from the study.
"We found no correlation between increased body mass index and mortality among study participants," said Diehr. "Instead, it appears that significant, unintended weight loss should be of primary concern for seniors." Read more.
Health Effects Of Weight Loss Need More Research
ScienceDaily (July 4, 2005) — Although it seems obvious that when overweight people lose weight their health should improve, the relationship between weight loss and health may not be as simple as that, suggests previous studies from Finland and Denmark. For example, it is difficult to control for all other possible things that might cause weight loss, such as other medical conditions that could then increase mortality.
The researchers at the University of Helsinki, Helsinki and Copenhagen University Hospitals, Danish Epidemiology Science Center and National Public Health Institute in Finland started with a population of 19 993 Finnish twins who were asked in 1975 about their weight and whether they were attempting to lose weight. In 1981, they were asked again about their weight, and then followed for up to 18 years to see who died. The researchers looked at the 2 957 who were overweight or obese (BMI at least 25) and took out of the analyses all the people who had illnesses, or those who had data missing, and analysed mortality against intention to lose weight in 1975 and actual change in weight.
They found that those people who intended to lose weight and who actually did so had a somewhat higher mortality than those who gained weight or whose weight remained the same. In people who did not intend to lose weight, gaining weight was associated with a somewhat higher mortality. Read more.
Older-adult Dieting Won't Lead To Reduced Physical Function, Research Suggests
ScienceDaily (May 8, 2007) — Unintentional weight loss in older adults often leads to frailty, a decline in physical function and even death. So is it wise for older, overweight women to embark on a weight loss program? New research from Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center suggests that these women are better off trying to lose weight -- even if they regain some of it.
"Our results suggest that losing weight through calorie cutting won't lead to increased disability in older women," said Jamehl Demons, M.D., lead investigator on a project evaluating the effects of weight loss on physical performance.
And even when some of the weight was regained, the women still came out ahead. "It looks like they are better off than if they had never tried to lose weight," said Mary F. Lyles, M.D., lead investigator on an analysis exploring how dieting affected body composition. Read more.
Can You Be Fat & Healthy? By JEFFREY KLUGER
By most measures, Kelly Bliss, 50, surely seems to have let herself go. The Lansdowne, Pa., resident stands 5 ft. 2 in. in her stockings but tips the scales at nearly 200 lbs. Run those numbers through the body mass index (BMI)--the statistical measure that factors height and weight to diagnose obesity--and Bliss scores higher than 35. Anything above 25 is overweight; anything above 30 is obese. In the nation's ongoing war with obesity-related health problems, Bliss is one more casualty, right?
Maybe not. In fact, we should all be as unhealthy as Kelly Bliss. Her blood pressure is often as low as 100/50. Her cholesterol and blood sugar are normal. When she lies on her back, she can pull her leg to her face and touch her nose--while barely bending her knee. Can you? Oh, yes, and while most Americans exercise grudgingly, if at all, Bliss never misses a day, walking 10 to 20 miles a week and teaching an aerobics class at a local church. "You look at me in a leotard," she says. "I'm a cute little chick." Read more.
Body Image Is Stronger Predictor Of Health Than Obesity, Says Study
ScienceDaily (Feb. 13, 2008) — In a study to examine the impact of desired body weight on the number of unhealthy days subjects report over one month, researchers at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health found that the desire to weigh less was a more accurate predictor of physically and mentally unhealthy days, than body mass index (BMI). In addition, the desire to lose weight was more predictive of unhealthy days among Whites than among African-Americans or Hispanics, and among women than among men.
After controlling for actual BMI and age, the researchers found that men who wished to lose 1 percent, 10 percent, and 20 percent of their body weight, respectively, reported 0.1, 0.9 and 2.7 more unhealthy days per month than those who were happy with their weight. Among women, the corresponding increase in numbers of reported unhealthy days was 0.1, 1.6 and 4.3. Persons who were happy with their weight experienced fewer physically unhealthy days (3.0 vs 3.7) and mentally unhealthy days (2.6 vs 3.6) compared with persons unhappy with their weight.
"Our data suggest that some of the obesity epidemic may be partially attributable to social constructs that surround ideal body types," said Peter Muennig, MD, MPH, Mailman School of Public Health assistant professor of Health Policy and Management. "Younger persons, Whites, and women are disproportionately affected by negative body image concerns, and these groups unduly suffer from BMI-associated morbidity and mortality." Read more.
Is The Obesity Epidemic Exaggerated?
ScienceDaily (Feb. 5, 2008) — Last week, the UK health secretary declared that we are in a grip of an obesity epidemic, but does the evidence stack up? Researchers debate the issue in the British Medical Journal.
Claims about an obesity epidemic often exceed the scientific evidence and mistakenly suggest an unjustified degree of certainty, argue Patrick Basham and John Luik.
For example, the average population weight gain in the United States in the past 42 years is 10.9kg or 0.26kg a year. Yet, between 1999-2000 and 2001-2002, there were no significant changes in the prevalence of overweight or obesity among US adults or in the prevalence of overweight among children.
Furthermore, they say, the categories of normal, overweight, and obese is entirely arbitrary and at odds with the underlying evidence about the association between body mass index and mortality.
For example, the study on which the bands for overweight and obesity in the US are based found that the death risks for men with a body mass index of 19-21 were the same as those for men who were overweight and obese (29-31). Other studies have shown negligible differences between body mass index and death rates.
The association of overweight and obesity with higher risks of disease is equally unclear, they write. And, despite supposedly abnormal levels of overweight and obesity, life expectancy continues to increase. Read more.
