Being fat, in and of itself, is not going to kill you. I know, I know, this seems impossible; don’t we hear all the time that obesity is inevitably going to cause everyone in society to spontaneously drop dead of icky fat heart attacks? Well, sure. But studies continue to show that fat is not, by itself, deadly. Inactivity is :
A recent study offered the HAES movement some interesting ammunition in this battle. The study recruited almost 12,000 people of varying BMIs and followed them for 170 months as they adopted healthier habits. Their conclusion? “ Healthy lifestyle habits are associated with a significant decrease in mortality regardless of baseline body mass index.”
Take a look. The “hazard ratio” refers to the risk of dying early, with 1 being the baseline. The “habits” along the bottom count how many healthy habits a person reported. The shaded bars represent people of different BMIs from “healthy weight” (18.5-24.9) to “overweight” (25-29.9), to “obese” (over 30).
Essentially, the study concludes that if you’re doing the right things — watching what you eat, getting up off the couch and going for a walk, maybe going to the gym once in a while — that it doesn’t matter if you’re fat or thin — you’re equally likely to live a long, healthy life.
All is not sweetness and light, of course. As Lisa Wade notes:
This data doesn’t refute the idea that fat matters. In fact, it shows clearly that thinness is protective if people are doing absolutely nothing to enhance their health . It also suggests, though, that healthy habits can make all the difference . Overweight and obese people can have the same mortality risk as “normal” weight people; therefore, we should reject the idea that fat people are “killing themselves” with their extra pounds. It’s simply not true.
Exactly. There’s plenty of evidence that suggests that it’s important to exercise, and important to be healthier. And that’s fine — healthy habits are a good thing. But not because they will cause you to magically not be fat. Rather, developing healthy habits will help you live longer and better, which is really the important thing.
The societal impulse to push thinness over everything else is ultimately dangerous. There is some evidence that if you’re a sedentary thin person who eats poorly, you’ll have a better shot at a long, healthy life than a sedentary fat person who eats poorly. But that’s just genetic luck — we all have a touch of that. If you’re an active fat person, however, you’re much more likely to live a long and healthy life than a sedentary thin person. If we as a society advocate for healthy habits — exercising more and eating healthier — we will all benefit. If we keep our focus on fat, not only will it not help fat people live longer, it won’t help skinny people, either.
(Via io9)
I really liked this blog. I agree with a lot of things that was said in this mini article. I think that society as a whole tries to exercise for the wrong reasons. Instead of people exercising so that they can be healthy individuals, people are exercising so that will not be considered to be fat and obese. People are more focused on making themselves look acceptable than making themselves healthy. I feel that some people who exercise and diet to “stay” healthy live shorter because they are not doing proper and healthy exercising. This ironically makes them live shorter lives even though they appear to be living an active and healthy lives. So instead of people doing this so that they can be an “acceptable” weight people should be active and do things such as exercise so that they can live long and healthy lives.
Isn’t this based on BMI? And haven’t we all agreed that BMI is at best a rough proxy for fatness and thinness, and at worst is almost meaningless?
If you take someone who doesn’t smoke and who rarely drinks and who eats lots of fruits and vegetables and who exercises an average of three times a week… that person may have a high BMI (hello, muscular folks!) but that person does not seem extraordinarily likely to be fat, as in “carrying around a lot of lipose tissue in proportion to their body weight.”
Part of the issue is that the medical terms for “obese” and “overweight” don’t necessarily match lay usage, as we all know from various BMI discussions.
In any case, it certainly demonstrates that weight in proportion to height isn’t necessarily unhealthy, given the right amount of circumstances. But it isn’t actually a great demonstration that fat (as opposed to “weight”) is either healthy or unhealthy. A study designed to look at fat would have to measure fat %ages.
No it doesn’t, they say pretty much the exact opposite.
I’m not entirely sure what you mean, James – are you interpreting “decrease in mortality” to mean “shorter life”? Because to me it looks like the two quotes you give mean exactly the same thing.
“does not seem extraordinarily likely” = “thing I just made up right now”?
Go read Ragen Chastain’s blog. She is a professional competitive dancer and teacher, and weighs 300 pounds. She is fat. She now runs a forum for fat exercisers and athletes of all kinds.
One of my friend’s wives bikes 17 miles one way to her work at least 3 days a week when the weather allows. They eat no wheat and little dairy, and cook from whole foods most of the time. She is a size 22 and probably 250 pounds. She is fat.
There are fat marathon runners, fat cyclists, fat Olympic athletes, fat vegetarians, fat vegans, fat people at all kinds of activity levels with all kinds of diets.
This seems like you’ve internalised the narrative that healthy habits necessarily lead to carrying less fat. As Elusis points out- this is demonstrably unture. The study shows that healthy habits are their own reward regardless of weight- and the habits mentioned would not necessarily imply anything about muscle mass or body fat percentages. They’re little things:
30 mins of exercise 12 times a month
>=5 portions of fruit and veg a day
no smoking
alcohol in moderation- one drink a day for women, 2 for men.
All those habits combined don’t necessarily make you a bodybuilder.
No. “Does not seem extraordinarily likely “= “although there can be (and are) people who are doing all of those healthy habits and are also carrying a lot of lipose tissue it is less likely, since those healthy habits are often linked with decreases in at %age.” There are a lot of fat athletes, I imagine. That’s because there are a lot of people. The question is one of ratios, not pure numbers.
A general rule allows for outliers. It’s irrelevant that you know some–or even many–fat people who exercise. I also know a lot of very tall women, but women are, nonetheless, not as tall as men.
as for this one:
Again, that is not what I said. I’m quite capable of controlling whether I make an all inclusive or limited statement when I am posting. Are you not understanding the difference between “does not seem incredibly likely” and necessarily?”
G&W – I realize that “anecdote =! data”. But you also realize that “does not seem extraordinarily likely” =! data either, right? And which statement is more likely to be influenced by the pervasive weight bias of our culture?
The article you are responding to, and many of the articles in the study’s references section, find that fat people don’t, as a group, eat differently from thin people, move differently from thin people, etc. The article you are responding to doesn’t find that fat people who cultivate basic healthy habits are “outliers.” Maybe you have a hard time picturing active, healthy, athletic fat people?
And yet, here I am! :-D Non-smoking, teetotaling vegan, who engages in moderate physical activity regularly. Done all this for many, many years. Still really, really fat. Interestingly, a majority of the few other really, really fat people whom I know are also non-smoking, non-drinking life-long vegetarians who do, indeed, exercise. It’s true, however, that such persons are not “extraordinarily likely to be fat,” because *any* given person, statistically, is not likely to be particularly fat — really fat people are a minority of the human population. But we’re a minority who, in our eating, drinking, smoking, and physical-activity habits, are not especially different than the population as a whole.
Another non-smoking vegan here. I drink maybe once or twice a month. Get a moderate amount of exercise, what I can manage with my joint issues. BMI of 30.