Table of contents:
- "Fat but healthy" still does not prevent you from heart disease and cancer
- "Fat but healthy" also does not mean you are free from the threat of diabetes
- Fat cells in obese people are different from fat cells in lean people
- "Fat but healthy" is fine, as long as ...
- "Fat but healthy" is still no excuse
For years experts believed that it was possible for a person to be "fat but healthy".
However, now a number of researchers are breaking down the old idea that "the risk of death from obesity can be overcome by being physically fit" by showing the latest evidence. The point is, if you are overweight, getting into regular, intense exercise will not prevent you from dying prematurely. Obese people who regularly exercise have a tendency to die even faster than people who are thin and not fit, the researchers said.
Researchers claim that for people who are overweight, losing weight for a healthy ideal body is still far more important than just doing exercise "to stay healthy".
What is the reason?
"Fat but healthy" still does not prevent you from heart disease and cancer
The idea that you can be "fat but healthy" is based on the theory that a high concentration of aerobic fitness - how efficiently your heart and lungs can use oxygen - can make up for complications of obesity.
Reporting from the NHS, an independent study from the University of Umea, Sweden found that participants who were ranked fifth highest in aerobic fitness levels had a 51% lower risk of death from any cause than those who were inactive at all. However, this effect was lost in the overweight group, even if they were at a high level of fitness.
And, men who were lean and active had a reduced risk of premature death by up to 30 percent lower than those who were "obese but healthy".
The study involved more than one million Swedes, with an average age of 18 at the time of recruitment for the armed forces - who required them to take a cycling fitness test when they enlisted. These participants have also been weighed and measured, which allows researchers to find out if they are obese.
Data were collected based on their physical fitness, health condition, socioeconomic status, and cause of death after being followed for nearly 29 years. During that time, the research team found four common causes of death for nearly 45 thousand study participants, including cancer and heart disease.
The above comparisons were also drawn adjusting for the unexpected effects of body mass index, cytolic and diastolic blood pressure, socioeconomic variables 15 years after military service retirement, and general diagnoses at baseline study recruitment. Again, people with the highest levels of fitness significantly reduced their risk of death from all causes, including trauma, heart or cebrebrovascular disease, suicide, and substance abuse.
The researchers also observed a linear trend for risk of death from all causes, stratified by aerobic fitness levels across all BMI categories. When comparing the top half of the group's aerobic fitness levels with those of the bottom, the analysis found that higher aerobic fitness was associated with a significantly reduced risk of death from any cause in normal weight and overweight individuals. However, these benefits were not significant for obese people with a BMI of 35 or more.
"Fat but healthy" also does not mean you are free from the threat of diabetes
An Australian study of more than 30,000 people found that just being a physically active individual will not protect you from developing the disease if you are already overweight or obese.
Reporting from The Guardian, observed from the study, groups of obese people - even if they include physically active (regular exercise) and spend very little time relaxing - have five times the risk of developing type 2 diabetes than those who are at a healthy weight, even if these people had lower levels of physical activity and slacked off more often.
People who are overweight, the study further said, have twice the risk than people who are normal weight and less active.
Thus, one more additional study that supports the argument that "fat but healthy" is possible, and reduces the risk of any disease it carries - including type 2 diabetes.
Lead researcher Thanh-Binh Nguyen from the University of Sydney said, "If you are overweight, just being physically active can do little to help you prevent type 2 diabetes. What will help actually reduce your weight. So it's important to stay physically active and start adopting healthy eating habits. "
Fat cells in obese people are different from fat cells in lean people
According to study findings published in Cell Reports taken from Scientific American, fat cells in obese people perform a different activity from fat cells in healthy people.
By looking at the gene expression profile (from the results of fat cell biopsies in three groups of participants: 17 non-obese, 21 obese people who were sensitive to insulin, and 30 obese people who were resistant to insulin), the researchers found that when they injected participants with insulin, the response was cells were almost indistinguishable in the two obese groups.
The observation that two different obese body types display very similar responses could provide clues as to why obese sensitive participants display increased morbidity and heart disease risk, compared with non-obese individuals. This finding is from a risk factor independent of cardio-metabolic (metabolic disorder syndrome), and calls into question the "fat but healthy" notion.
Being overweight not only increases your risk of heart disease, stroke and some types of cancer, but also makes your diabetes harder to manage.
"Fat but healthy" is fine, as long as …
You can be "fat but healthy," according to the National Institutes of Health's 1998 report Clinical Guidelines on the Identification, Evaluation and Treatment of Overweight and Obesity in Adults.
They found that people who are overweight can also be considered healthy, if they meet criteria such as: their waist size is in a healthy circumference (maximum 89 cm for women and 101 cm for men), and if they do not have two or more of the following conditions: high blood pressure, high blood sugar and high cholesterol levels. Other risk factors, such as smoking, also affect whether a person is considered healthy.
But wait a minute.
"Fat but healthy" is still no excuse
The guidelines also show that people who are overweight and obese should no longer gain any additional weight, and should still lose the few pounds that were already there.
Furthermore, there is also conflicting evidence, with researchers vehemently refuting the idea of "being fat but healthy." In a 2013 study, researchers from the Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute at Mount Sinai Hospital in Canada found that people who weigh more than their recommended BMI, but don't have normal cholesterol or blood pressure, still have a 24% more risk. high for heart disease or premature death, compared to individuals who have healthy metabolisms in the normal weight range.
In conclusion, "motivational" ideas such as "healthy obesity" and "fat but healthy" were judged by many to oversimplify the serious health problems lurking behind them, which are still a mystery to experts.
Lastly, the idea of "being fat but healthy" should not be used as a justification for being overweight, only as a reminder that the combination of an active lifestyle and adopting a healthy diet is a much more important solution to your overall health than the numbers on your scale.
