Every so often, a piece of breaking health news sweeps the media and reaches the public through every major news network. A couple of weeks ago, the following headline began rapidly circulating- “’Healthy Obesity Is a Myth, Report Says.” Yes, one year after doctors finally declared obesity as a disease, and many years after the American Heart Association moved overweight and obesity from and “contributing factor” to a full-fledged risk factor, only now do we hear that it is harmful to be obese. One magazine took things so far that their writer’s published article was titled “You Can’t Be Fit and Fat.” As usual, some of the headlines were misleading and the study didn’t even include exercise into the equation. Let’s have a look at what the outcome of this study was to put it into perspective.
In this Canadian study, researchers found that even without high blood pressure, diabetes or other metabolic issues, overweight and obese people had higher rates of death, heart attack and stroke after 10 years compared with their thinner counterparts.
“This data suggests that increased body weight is not a benign condition, even in the absence of metabolic abnormalities, and argues against the concept of healthy obesity or benign obesity,” said researcher Dr. Ravi Retnakaran, an associate professor of medicine at the University of Toronto.
The terms “healthy obesity” and “benign obesity” have been used to describe people who are obese but don’t have the abnormalities that typically accompany obesity, such as high blood pressure, high blood sugar and high cholesterol, Retnakaran explained. “We found that metabolically healthy obese individuals are indeed at increased risk for death and cardiovascular events over the long term as compared with metabolically healthy normal-weight individuals,” he added.
It is possible that obese people who appear metabolically healthy have low levels of some risk factors that worsen over time, as the researchers suggest in the report originally published December 3 in Annals of Internal Medicine.
Dr. David Katz, director of the Yale University Prevention Research Center, welcomed the report. “Given the recent attention to the ‘obesity paradox’ in the professional literature and pop culture alike, this is a very timely and important paper,” Katz said. The obesity paradox says that obese people with chronic diseases have a better chance of survival than normal-weight individuals do.
Some obese people appear healthy because not all weight gain is harmful, Katz said. “It depends partly on genes, partly on the source of calories, partly on activity levels, partly on hormone levels. Weight gain in the lower extremities among younger women tends to be metabolically harmless; weight gain as fat in the liver can be harmful at very low levels,” Katz noted.
I think most experts today would agree that being overweight in it of itself is harmful. Aside from contributing to diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol, being very overweight or obese can lead to fatty liver disease, sleep apnea, osteoarthritis, and emotional problems like depression. Yes, at some point, your musculoskeletal system will try to tell you that it wasn’t created to schlep around all that extra weight. You will feel it in your knees, back, hips, feet and ankles. You will experience it through aches and pains that can negatively impact your quality of life as you age. And just because you went to the doctor at age 50 and your blood test looked relatively good, when you carry around too much weight, those numbers can and usually will change rapidly.
The biggest fault in this study is that it doesn’t address the “Fit and Fat” phenomenon. Physical activity is far, far more important than weight, as the results from the Aerobics Longitudinal Study (the biggest and most rigorous study on the topic) state. This study, conducted under the supervision of Dr. Steven Blair examined data on 43,265 participants enrolled in this study between 1979 and 2003 who filled out questionnaires about their lifestyle and medical history and also underwent physical exams, blood tests and a treadmill tests to gauge their cardiovascular fitness. The researchers categorized obese participants as “metabolically healthy” if aside from their weight, they didn’t suffer from insulin resistance, diabetes, low levels of good cholesterol, high triglycerides and high blood pressure. Nearly half of the obese participants in the study qualified as metabolically fit.
Compared with obese people who had at least two of the above markers of poor health, those who were obese but metabolically healthy had a 38% lower risk of early death from any cause. In fact, those who were fat but fit had no higher death risk than metabolically healthy normal weight participants. The problem with the current study is that it didn’t differentiate between obese people who exercise and those who don’t.
In Blair’s study, those in the lowest fifth in terms of fitness had a death rate four times higher than participants ranked in the top fifth for fitness. Dr. Blair states, “Being fit provides protection against mortality in these men and women 60 and older, whether they’re normal weight, overweight, or obese.” In another study by Lee, Blair, and Jackson several years ago, 21,925 men of all shapes and sizes were assessed and monitored for eight years. The study concluded that men, who were fit and fat actually had a lower mortality rate than men who were normal weight but unfit and sedentary. One of the authors of this study is clinically obese, however, he runs 35 miles per week. So the key here is “fit,” not necessarily thin.
This latest research, highly touted and publicized, has its place- if you don’t exercise and you are obese, it is dangerous, even if you blood pressure, your cholesterol and you blood sugar is all great! But if you can manage to exercise while being obese, you’re better off than a thin person, who doesn’t exercise.
One more thing to think about, if you are counting on being overweight or obese and being an exerciser, take it from this personal trainer who has trained many overweight people—it isn’t so easy to exercise and be fat. You might have to do it, but it is a lot more pleasant to lose the weight while you are exercising with proper eating, proper sleep, good hydration and making sure your exercise program is balanced and safe for you to do.
In the end of the day, working toward a normal weight together with exercise will. “add hours to your day, days to your year, and years to your life.”
Alan Freishtat is an A.C.E. CERTIFIED PERSONAL TRAINER and a BEHAVIORAL CHANGE and WELLNESS COACH with over 19 years of professional experience. Alan is the creator and director of the “10 Weeks to Health” program for weight loss. He is available for private coaching sessions, consultations, assessments and personalized workout programs both in his office and by telephone and skype. Alan also lectures and gives seminars and workshops. He can be reached at 02-651-8502 or 050-555-7175, or by email at alan@alanfitness.com Check out the his web site –www.alanfitness.com US Line: 516-568-5027.
The words of this author reflect his/her own opinions and do not necessarily represent the official position of the Orthodox Union.