Question your opinions on weight loss

by Jen (October 10, 2007)

We are inundated daily with the message that “fat = unhealthy”. One of my favorite blogs is JunkFoodScience, written by a nutritionist who posts about the evidence against that message. Before you assume she’s just making excuses for overweight people to be sloths, be aware she’s not advocating poor diet or exercise habits. Her message is more that if you eat decently, exercise, have no health problems and you are still “overweight”, stop worrying. The stress will kill you long before the fat.

Here’s a perfect example of how a study that set out to prove obesity leads to mental decline in old age ended up proving exactly the opposite. Lower BMI seemed to be associated with a mental decline instead. Does that mean you need to pork out? No, it just means those pounds almost all of us gain as we age might not be something we should go nuts trying to combat. It might be a natural adaptation.

The bottom line is: you know skinny people who have health problems and you know fat people who have no health problems. What you weigh is far from the only determinant of your health. Stop judging yourself and/or others on the basis of how they look. How they look tells you nothing about how they conduct their lives… or your chances of outliving them.

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