Yes, Indeed — You Can Be Fit And Fat
When it comes to being healthy — size doesn't necessarily matter.
This is distressing news for some, because the conventional wisdom is that fat people are automatically unhealthy and skinny people are healthy. Of course, as the running research demonstrates, people have been suspicious of the super skinny, exercise-obsessed, too and any time an athlete up and drops dead, it gets lots of attention (but it is usually due to an undiagnosed heart or metabolic problem or even stress More here.)
The definition of “healthy” has serious ramifications both medically and economically. People may or may not change their lifestyles based on bad information when they should be taking a different course. In addition, managed care is seriously on the table now. Should Barack Obama win the presidency and the Democrats control both the House and Senate, and that includes deciding what it means to be healthy. Forget the pain in your pocketbook, your health care may depend on how health is defined.
So, what is the key to “healthy” since it is possible to be healthy and fat? The key is actually common sense :
In all weight categories, risk factors for heart problems were generally more common in older people, smokers and inactive people. Among obese people who were 50 to 64, just 20 percent were considered healthy compared with half of younger obese people.
The results underscore how important exercise is for staying healthy, even for people of healthy weight, Wylie-Rosett said.
The authors noted that fat tissue releases hormones and other substances that affect things like blood vessels, cholesterol and blood sugar. The results suggest this interaction varies among overweight and obese people, the authors said.
The results also add to mounting evidence that thick waists are linked with heart risks.
To be healthy, the standard advice applies: Don’t smoke, drink alcohol moderately (it even reduces your risk of stroke,) exercise regularly and eat healthy. But what does that mean practically? Too often, people feel overwhelmed by the advice. Quitting smoking is pretty straight forward, if a person can do it. [Health steps to take if you can't quit or don't want to, is another article.] But the rest of it can be confounding especially since people lead such busy lives.
Here’s what I tell my patients: Change one thing. Start with something small and doable. For example, sugary soda drinks are just terrible for your health. Give them up. A person who is “addicted” to a couple of sodas a day will lose weight immediately if he or she just changes this one thing.
Another small change that pays big dividends: daily walks. The benefits are almost infinite . Miss a day? Go out tomorrow and walk. People often get discouraged because they try something dramatic like “working out” or going to the gym or buying some equipment, when something as easy as walking would produce excellent health benefits and be sustainable.
The key to any lifestyle change is to make the benefits outweigh the negatives. Anything that consumes too much time, cuts into preferred activities, hurts, or otherwise makes a person miserable is unlikely to be stuck with long term. Once a person sees the benefits of one change, it’s easier to add another. Success breeds success.
A person doesn’t have to be supermodel skinny to be healthy. In fact, with her smoking, champagne and cheese diet and lack of muscle tone, she is probably unhealthy. Healthy comes in all body types, but healthy people tend to do the same things. So worry less about the scale and more about adding healthy habits.
You can be fat and fit.
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Dr. Melissa Clouthier is a chiropractor who blogs at MelissaClouthier.com and Right Wing News.
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31 Comments
1. Dark Helmet:Stick to cracking backs and selling your life time adjustment plans.
Fat is not healthy. Fat people should not run. Swimming is the best exercise for cardio , weight loss and joint protection. It also increase endurance and muscle tone.
I knew a lady who lost 23lbs in one swim just off the beach in Florida. Good thing the shark that helped her swims all the time too.
DD Palmer was a con artist who thought if he killed one of the only people in Davenport Iowa no one would care when he snapped his neck and loosened the ear wax that was blocking his hearing.
The rest is just auto injury personal injury lawyer history.
Sep 14, 2008 - 6:30 am 2. John Blake:The average American adult watches six hours of television per day, of which one third (two hours) are nothing but repetitive commercials.
At age 68, I’ve walked 6 – 8 miles per day for many years at about four miles per hour. Afternoons and evenings, rain or shine… after a cardiac episode, doctors called this habit an absolute life-saver.
Two hours outdoors, lumbering along because you enjoy it, versus two hours of commercials on TV: Who has the better deal? Walking costs only time and minimal effort– it’s what large, hairless primates are designed to do. At standard rates, my 1,250 miles per year is non-competitive, purely private; whether I walk or not, the world does not care.
Very liberating! All the medical advisories extant assert that moderate diet and exercise are key to longevity, individual well-being. Whatever your actuarial span, staying in halfway decent mental and physical shape should count as a priority.
Sep 14, 2008 - 8:35 am 3. Sandra M:Animals are fed hormones to fatten them up for market. Those hormones then enter our bodies when we eat their meat and we get fat as well. A government ban on these hormones would probably help the obesity problem greatly.
An alternative to swimming as an excercise for the obese is rebounding. Jumping on a trampoline which is good for the lymphatic system as well as one’s musculature. I once asked a woman with a terrific figure how she got that way. She bounced on a small trampoline while watching the news, she said.
Many writers are hypometabolic, hypothyroid endomorphs. Before nanny government took over and told us we couldn’t have certain substances without a prescription, such writers would take thyroid hormone or amphetamines when they had work to do. Amphetamines by another name are prescribed for ADDers.
Fred Thompson was on a strict diet while campaigning for President, and the consequences: fatigue, lack of stamina, bad mood doomed his candidacy. He grumped that he wasn’t allowed to eat anything he liked (I imagine he’s a steak and chops, baked potato with sour cream guy and the Atkins diet would have suited him just fine.
Models who starve themselves — not the naturally skinny ones — are usually considered really stupid. Can it be that they’re starving their brains of the fatty acids the brain needs?
Sep 14, 2008 - 9:41 am 4. Vada:I really hope that no one takes this “Dr.” seriously (really a bored housewife, I think, helping out in her quack husband’s office).
Go watch Oprah or something, honey.
Sep 14, 2008 - 10:30 am 5. Christy:Yes, one can be fat and fit and have one’s Doctor say “you don’t deserve your genes.” But then one day a sports injury to the foot that takes nearly a year to heal sends everything to he11 in a hand-basket. Fat and fit is living without a net. Still, it is infinitely better than giving up.
Sep 14, 2008 - 2:20 pm 6. Micha Elyi:I learned all I needed to know about the latest advice from health know-it-alls from the movie Sleeper.
“This stuff tastes awful. I could make a fortune selling it in my health food store.” — Miles Monroe, as played by Woody Allen.
Sep 14, 2008 - 3:19 pm 7. Dirk Jiggler:Fat is fit.
Overweight and obesity are the early warning signs of Metabolic Syndrome, which is triggered by the excessive consumption of sugary and refined-carbohydrate foods and characterized by excessive insulin secretion, high blood pressure, atherosclerosis and type-2 diabetes.
Fat people are ill, not fit.
Sep 14, 2008 - 4:10 pm 8. SMSgt Mac:Wow. You have some rather vocal fitness facsists trolling here, don’t you?
To be expected I suppose. After all, it seems to be you find them in every fitness center and gym – why not every fitness post?
As to the benefits of running, I would want more info before I extrapolated the results beyond the study group for a lot of reasons, not the least of which are the time and intensity variables. 40 years of running does a lot more damage to the joints than 20 years, and speaking from experience, when some personality types start young they tend to overdo it.
Yes, I miss my knees.
Sep 14, 2008 - 4:11 pm 9. MDC:Note that the “doctor” is actually a chiropractor. Caveat emptor.
Sep 14, 2008 - 6:02 pm 10. Doulas2:I clicked on the link for “sugary soda drinks are just terrible for your health” and found a lot of flannel from someone selling water ionizers. Just to pick nits: the phosphorus content of cola is many times less than that of orange-juice or milk.
Sep 14, 2008 - 7:14 pm 11. Israel:It appears to me that if fate has dealt you a winning hand of good genes then all you have to do is eat, drink, and exercise in moderation and avoid stuff like smoking or shooting up heroin, etc., etc., then you will have a healthy life. If on the other hand, you have inherited a lousy set of genes, you are screwed. A lifetime of healthy living will not stop the onset of inherited problems.
Sep 14, 2008 - 8:01 pm 12. John Bono:For example, my wife and I eat the same diet. Her cholesterol, triglycerides, blood glucose, etc.? Excellent. Meanwhile, I’m on medication for triglycerides, thyroid condition, irregular heartbeat, and watch my cholesterol and blood glucose like a hawk. I have spent a lifetime of running, biking, hiking, skiing, martial arts, tennis,and just plain working out rigorously at the gym 4-5 times a week. And I’m no fattie (150 lbs 5′8′).
I’m also the cook and my diet was pronounced (by my cardiologist) as an exemplary diet. Did it prevent any of my ailments? Hell no! Before she married me, my wife had a unhealthy diet. The difference between then and now? Save for some lost pounds and learning some new athletic skills, health wise – nada, nothing, zip, still the same healthy numbers. Me? a daily struggle to keep my head above water and not kill some fat slob that tells me “Yeah, my doctor said that I could eat a dozen eggs a day and my cholesterol would stay the same.”
Anyone who thinks someone can’t be fit and fat should ponder the following: I am 5′10″ and 300 lbs. This year, I’ve completed 1 century cycling(100 miles in a day), and about 5 or 6 metrics(62 miles+). I’ve done a 380 mile cycling tour through the cascade mountains in the course of 8 days, pulling a 60 lb trailer loaded with gear for the entire trip. Relatively speaking, I’ve taken it easy this year. I only did one century. Last summer, I did three. I only did one tour this year, last year, I did two. And, finally, I stopped going to the gym to concentrate on cycling. If any of you skinny guys would like to go cycling w/me, I’ll be certain to give you a head start.
Sep 14, 2008 - 9:21 pm 13. fatscist:Lame article. A person can be 200 lbs with 30% bodyfat or 200 lbs with 10% bodyfat. Do you seriously think that Mr. 30% bodyfat is fitter? So fat does matter. It’s not a choice between being “skinny” and “fat” you know. There’s also muscle The reason running alone seldom changes anyone’s body shape is because their body composition remains essentially the same proportion. Running sheds fat and muscle mass in equal measure so your bodyfat % hardly changes.
Sep 14, 2008 - 11:13 pm 14. Dark Helmet:“If any of you skinny guys would like to go cycling w/me, I’ll be certain to give you a head start.”
Yeah, but sooner or later it won’t be a down holl slope and you weighing in like a shopping cart full of cinderblocks is not going to help you out when we have to go …. uphill.
Sep 14, 2008 - 11:40 pm 15. indiancowboy:Actually, this study is poorly designed and merely highlights something that should have been obvious to anyone: BMI is a poor proxy of bodyfat percentage. Just google “normal weight obesity” to see what I mean.
It is certainly true that you can have a higher bodyfat percentage and still be quite healthy. The problem is that the BMI is an artificial proxy that has never been shown to be accurate at the individual level. NEVER. That means that if you were to give me your height and weight and I calculated your BMI, I would not be able to reliably predict your body fat percentage.
Knowing that, when we use the BMI for these studies, we aren’t really measuring body fat percentage, or even coming close. As an example of why BMI is such a poor measurement, at 5′10, any male who weighs over 174 is overweight. That’s not very heavy, and that means that many if not most physically fit men who engage in active pursuits from climbing to basketball to football to weightlifting are well into ‘overweight’ range. I myself have NEVER been less than 175 as an adult, and I wear 31″ pants.
*yawn* call me when they actually do a similar study that takes into account ACTUAL body fat percentage and/or lean body mass.
Sep 14, 2008 - 11:56 pm 16. SGT G:Slow running is terrible cardio. High Intensity Interval Training will make your body fat melt. Strength training with weights helps not only muscle growth, but bone density. Over a 24 hour period, you will burn more calories from high intensity training with weights than you ever will from running.
The reason people are fat these days is not animal hormones. It is processed carbs. If you do not want to be fat, do not eat anything that comes in a box, or better yet: do not eat anything our ancestors didn’t have access to. Humans are designed to eat meat, fish, veggies, fruits, nuts. Farming and grain cultivation is a rather recent discovery.
A small amount of body fat is healthy. Avoid staring at the weight scale, because muscle weighs more than fat but takes up less space.
Sep 15, 2008 - 12:54 am 17. SGT G:Just to add, burning calories over a 24 hour period is due to the body repairing muscle. Look at people who are in really good shape, they do very little jogging and mostly focus on weights. Getting big and musclebound is more of a function of eating more calories than you burn. So, don’t worry, lifting weights 3-4 times a week will not get you “jacked” unless you eat tons of food.
As far as jogging versus high intensity workouts, compare the average marathon runner’s physique to that of the average sprinter. Who looks healthier?
Sep 15, 2008 - 12:59 am 18. SGT G:Compare a long distance runner’s physique to that of a sprinter or gymnast.
Strength training with a good diet > Jogging with a good diet.
Without a good diet plan (proper amounts of healthy fats/protien/some carbs), no type of exercise will help you (unless you train like a machine,i.e. Michael Phelps).
Sep 15, 2008 - 1:05 am 19. Stuart Buck:I disagree . . . the Archives of Internal Medicine study wasn’t based on whether people were “fat,” but on their BMIs. But BMI doesn’t correlate with bodyfat very well at all. Seemingly skinny people can have high bodyfat because they are so lacking in muscle mass; and at the same time, building any muscle mass via exercise is a good way to fall into the “overweight” category of BMI regardless of your level of bodyfat.
Sep 15, 2008 - 4:42 pm 20. Living al Dente » Here and There - 09/16/08:[...] Fit and Fat? Say what? [...]
Sep 16, 2008 - 7:47 am 21. Sloan:My mother-in-law is out at the barn almost every day, riding her horse for an hour or more, moving and cleaning tack, walking all over the place…externally, she looks fit as a fiddle. And she has high cholesterol and high blood pressure.
I just know of too many people in my own life like this to take all these health warnings too seriously. I do exercise and watch my weight, but I’m not gonna kill myself just so I can get down to 10% body fat.
Sep 16, 2008 - 3:10 pm 22. Keegy United States - Yes, Indeed — You Can Be Fit And Fat:[...] Yes, Indeed — You Can Be Fit And Fat [...]
Sep 16, 2008 - 8:25 pm 23. My Latest Pajamas Media Article: Yes, You Can Be Fit And Fat « Blog Entry « Dr. Melissa Clouthier:[...] Read the whole thing here. [...]
Sep 17, 2008 - 3:25 pm 24. remy:My mother-in-law is out at the barn almost every day, riding her horse for an hour or more, moving and cleaning tack, walking all over the place…externally, she looks fit as a fiddle. And she has high cholesterol and high blood pressure.
I just know of too many people in my own life like this to take all these health warnings too seriously. I do exercise and watch my weight, but I’m not gonna kill myself just so I can get down to 10% body fat.
Nov 10, 2008 - 3:05 am 25. rob:sohbet
Keep in mind it is a crime in most states to impersonate a medical doctor. Chiropractors often skip the D.C. degree at the end of their name to make themselves seem more credible.
Dec 16, 2008 - 10:55 am 26. sohbet:thanks
Mar 4, 2009 - 4:17 am 27. origami:thanks and nice article
Apr 19, 2009 - 4:54 am 28. chat:My mother-in-law is out at the barn almost every day, riding her horse for an hour or more, moving and cleaning tack, walking all over the place…externally, she looks fit as a fiddle. And she has high cholesterol and high blood pressure.
Aug 1, 2009 - 6:03 pm 29. sohbet odaları:I just know of too many people in my own life like this to take all these health warnings too seriously. I do exercise and watch my weight, but I’m not gonna kill myself just so I can get down to 10% body fat.
Aug 16, 2009 - 3:58 am 30. kameralı sohbet:thanks you
Aug 17, 2009 - 1:55 pm 31. Sohbet:I just know of too many people in my own life like this to take all these health warnings too seriously. I do exercise and watch my weight, but I’m not gonna kill myself just so I can get down to 10% body fat.
Nov 26, 2009 - 6:09 am