Get Skinny or Else!

"We have to be very sensitive and understanding when we tackle America's obesity problem," says Dr. Robert Kushner, Clinical director of Northwestern University's Comprehensive Center on Obesity. "We don't want to stigmatize people and we don't want to make people feel it's their fault."

But in pointing fingers and proclaiming that YOU are different, YOU are unacceptable, isn't that ultimately stigmatizing and scapegoating? 

Kushner declares that fighting obesity will be a key component of health care reform in an attempt to "get a handle on the health care costs of this country." He, and many others like him, claim that 'overweight' men and women are a drain on the health care system and a burden to society at large. 

Does being fat, however, necessarily equate with being unhealthy? The answer: NO, except in the most extreme circumstances. Weight is an aesthetic, a means of physically identifying and measuring a person's level of attractiveness, but it is certainly not a health barometer. If you're too fat to roll yourself out of bed in the morning, or if your legs are too heavy to be lifted into a consistent stride, you're probably unhealthy. But if you're a size 22 and you can move your body and work it(!), there is nothing unhealthy about you.

Certain health officials would have you believe that being fat is a serious risk for certain factors such as diabetes or heart disease, but where is the proof? There is no scientific evidence directly linking weight with any of these illnesses. In fact, research done by the American Heart Association found that fatter cardiac patients were more likely to survive hospital visits or invasive treatments than their thinner counterparts, even when considering age and other contributing factors. 

Dr. Paul Ernsberger, of Case Western Reserve School of Medicine in Cleveland, Ohio, led a review of nearly 400 studies that was published in the Journal of Obesity and Weight Regulation in 1987 which corroborated these results. “The idea that fat strains the heart has no scientific basis,” he said. “As far as I can tell, the idea comes from diet books, not scientific books. Unfortunately, some doctors read diet books.” In April 2006, researchers at Cedars Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles reported their clinical study of 14,739 patients with coronary artery disease, that had been confirmed on tomography, who were followed for over three years. They found that “obese” and “overweight” patients were at significantly lower risks for cardiac death than “normal” weight patients.

Though it has not been proven that being overweight can produce negative health effects, is hasbeen proven that fat can protect against infections, heart disease, lung disease, cancer, osteoporosis, anemia, rheumatoid arthritis, type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure. As fat blogger Kate Harding points out, poor nutrition and a sedentary lifestyle do cause health problems for individuals, both thin and fat, being overweight is not synonymous with an debilitating lifestyle. Nurse Sandy Szwarc, who authors the Junkfood Science blog, explains it best when she discusses the media's ceaseless efforts to link our weight, favorite foods, and lifestyles to one horrible disease or other. Says Szwarc: 

Epidemiological (observational) studies - which use computer models to dredge through information on a group of people to find correlations - are most rife with misinterpreted statistics, errors, and biases, and are most easily manipulated to arrive at whatever conclusions researchers set out to find... No matter how popular, impressive or intuitively correct it might seem, a correlation to a disease is not evidence that it's the cause. 

I'll say it again: A CORRELATION TO A DISEASE IS NOT EVIDENCE THAT IT'S THE CAUSE. I.e. an arbitrary, computer-generated correlation between obesity and heart disease DOES NOT indicate that obesity is the cause of heart disease. 

Kate Harding also brings up a very valid point: there are fat people who eat well, exercise often, and still remain "fat." There are diseases that cause a weight gain in previously healthy people. Genetics, hormones, stress, etc. are all huge contributing factors to a person's weight, so it is impossible to pinpoint ONE cause--say, that a person is eating too much; therefore, it is impossible to come up with any one solution--PUT DOWN THE BURGER AND GET ON A TREADMILL.

I spent the better part of my childhood convinced that I was overweight because it was a character flaw, that I just wasn't trying hard enough, until I was diagnosed with polycystic ovarian syndrome at 17. And even at my healthiest weight (5'3", 145 lbs, size 7 jeans), when I could run a 10 minute mile and do a standing half split like nobody's business, the BMI charts still told me I was overweight and in danger. Today the BMI is finally being recognized as an unrealistic and often implausible measure of health; Aveen Bannon of the Dublin Nutrition Centre said that it can be used as a rough guide, but it can often be inaccurate. "For example," she says," a rugby player, who has a strong build made up of heavy muscle, will always have a high BMI and fall into the overweight category." Bannon says that she has also seen cases where a person's BMI was low, but they had a high amount of body fat.

For me, I've decided that as long as I'm healthy and happy it doesn't matter how much I weigh. But not everyone feels this way. Centers for disease control and prevention say obesity leads to $147 billion dollars per year in medical costs, and it looks as though weight loss will become something of a federal mandate. They want to focus on "preventative care" rather than "illness care," but can obesity really be considered an illness? Dr. Kushner is insisting that obesity interferes with work productivity and quality of life, but the last time I checked my BMI of 39 is not keeping me from shuffling my paperwork or lounging on the beach. And you know, I don't want to be "tackled" by the health care system, because I don't feel obligated to lose a goddamn pound. I don't have heart disease, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, or diabetes, and I don't have a problem with the way I look. If there is a problem here, it's not with me. Get out of my kitchen, back off my body, and go "tackle" a real issue!

Take a look at this dialog between Fat Blogger Kate Harding and Dr. Kushner and tell me what you think: