Miscellaneous Articles

Fat, but fit

December 15th, 2008

I have a particular fondness for studies that come to conclusions that agree with stuff I’ve long believed, which is why a study in The Archives of Internal Medicine is now a hot favourite of mine.

You see, I’ve always gained weight very easily and the only way I keep my weight down is by exercising like a madman (easy for me to do because I just try to keep up with my wife) and by being careful about what and especially how much I eat.

But even with that kind of discipline, it’s still hard for me to my weight low enough to be included in that club with BMI’s of 25 or less, which is considered to be the cut-off between those who are overweight and those who are normal weight.

So from my own situation, but also from that of so many others in the same (over-full boat), I’ve long believed – and I think the data backs me up – that even if I can’t control my weight easily, I can still significantly lower my risks of chronic disease and premature death by following all those other healthy lifestyle practices I am always pushing on you and especially by doing all I can to get fit, which brings me to that study mentioned above in which researchers followed the health of over 5000 Americans from 1999 to 2004.

As you’d expect, more than half these typical Americans was overweight, but here’s the key thing: 51 % of those who were overweight and about 1/3 of those who were obese were nonetheless “metabolically healthy”, that is, their cholesterol levels, their blood sugar levels, their blood pressures, etc were within normal limits.

In other words, although these people were fat, they were still healthy, or as my mom always says whenever I worry about the future, “Don’t be an idiot, Arthur, so far, so good. Relax”.

The other sobering observation from this study is that 23 % of those who were “normal weight” had metabolic readings that put them at higher risk of having a heart attack or stroke or Type 2 diabetes.