Skip to main content

Fitness not Fatness

We want to reduce the stigma of obesity.  And we want to improve health.  So how about focusing on fitness not "fatness"?  

As we head toward the majority of adults with obesity in the coming decades, it is increasingly self-harming for our society to stigmatize large bodies.  Yet as our health worsens, we need to take urgent sustained action to develop healthier habits.  How do we reconcile these two seemingly contradictory issues?

I wouldn't be surprised if a large portion of anxiety & depression among Americans, especially teens, is due to weight & body shape.  The increase in child & adult obesity is spreading the stress, even as it becomes more normal to be obese.  At the same time, as obesity becomes more widespread, some of the stigma is receding--with the potential good-news/bad-news downside of less motivation for people to do something about dangerous extra weight causing metabolic syndrome, diabetes, heart disease, etc.  

One problem with urging folks with obesity to try to be fit is the unrealistic images that go with "fitness."  We equate being fit with being slim--"in shape"--with a healthy low-calorie diet as well as an active lifestyle.  But people with overweight and obesity can be and often are active and quite fit.  And this also improves their physical and mental health--and helps them manage their weight.  

We are finding that just losing 5-7% of one's weight can forestall or even reverse Type-2 diabetes--having less obesity, but without needing to reach normal weight.  

As we enter a new body-shape-and-weight "normal," we should re-focus our health vocabulary--onto achieving healthy reasonable levels of fitness.




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Is it a “Miracle Drug”?...if it Costs a Fortune and Creates Lifelong Dependency...&...Saggy Faces!?

[It’s been a while since our last blog post.  A lot has happened since– including some “miracles” ! So we’re going to do two posts in a row…] Normally we should all be happy about miracle drugs... shouldn't we ? Yes, there is lots of upside from taking semaglutide (Ozempic, Wegovy), tirzepatide (Montjaro)--and upcoming new, even-more-miraculous drugs TBD:  losing huge amounts of weight quickly, a much lower risk of diabetes–and probably less heart disease and other chronic conditions as well.  But what if the “miracle” requires:   $200-300/week, with a lifetime cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars…  a drug that you can never quit…because if you stop taking it, you gain back all the weight it helped you lose–not to mention the chronic diseases which the drugs kept at bay… and it leaves your face (and the rest of your skin?) sagging …    (plus, it’s so new at such high dosages– who knows what happens after years of use…? ) No doubt, in spit...
4 comments
Read more

Urban food myth #1: it costs more to eat healthy than to eat fast food

I get so tired of hearing this: "It costs less to buy a burger from McDonald's that to eat healthy food from the supermarket." "Low-income families just buy processed food, they don't cook their own food anymore." That always sounded questionable.  Here is a study showing in great detail that fast food is much more expensive than healthy food bought at the supermarket . Also, it turns out that the vast majority of meals eaten by low-income families are prepared at home: Blisard N, Stewart H. How low-income households allocate their food budget relative to the cost of the Thrifty Food Plan. Economic research report, United States. Washington, DC: Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service, 2006;20. What is true is that buying healthy vs. unhealthy foods can cost $1.50/person/day more, at retail prices.  However, when health cost consequences are factored in, unhealthy foods cost twice as much .
2 comments
Read more

GenZ Sue Boomers Over Health?!

We don’t usually think of Germans as being litigious--but desperate situations breed desperate measures.  The youth of Germany just won a major legal victory , in which they sued the government, dominated by older Germans such as Chancellor Merkel, over climate issues.  Younger Germans allege that those in power are not doing enough to prevent a future climate catastrophe, which would harm today’s youth much more than today’s elderly--who will be long dead by the time the full force of climate change hits Germany. Which makes me wonder: what if GenZ-ers and Millennials sued our ruling-class Boomers over their gross neglect of youth health?   Our older generations have allowed younger generations to develop epidemic levels of chronic disease. Across the country, our “leaders” wantonly permitted schools to slash physical & health education & recess.  This has been a major factor in today’s pervasive child inactivity, obesity & unfitness--inevitably lea...
1 comment
Read more