Urgent and key
Edit: Combined all three posts into one uberpost.
In almost all large-scale epidemiological studies, little or no correlation between weight and health can be found for a large majority of the population - and indeed what correlation does exist suggests that it is more dangerous to be just a few pounds "underweight" than dozens of pounds "overweight"...
Several recent studies indicate that the key to avoiding Type 2 diabetes is not to try to lose weight (indeed, there is much evidence that dieters are far more prone to the disease than average), but rather to make lifestyle changes in regard to activity levels and dietary content that greatly reduce the risk of contracting the disease, whether or not such changes lead to any weight loss...
In other words: Eat healthy and exercise, but don't obsess over whether it's going to cause you to lose ten pounds or not.
Over the past 20 years, scientists have gathered a wealth of evidence indicating that cardiovascular and metabolic fitness, and the activity levels that promote such fitness, are far more important predictors of both overall health and mortality risk than weight. Yet none of the studies most often cited for the proposition that fat kills makes any serious attempt to control for these variables.
The most extensive work of this sort has been carried out by Steven Blair and his colleagues at Dallas's Cooper Institute, involving more than 70,000 people. What they have discovered is that, quite simply, when researchers take into account the activity levels and resulting fitness of the people being studied, body mass appears to have no relevance to health whatsoever. In Blair's studies, obese people who engage in at least moderate levels of physical activity have around one half the mortality rate of sedentary people who maintain supposedly ideal weight levels.
Similarly, a 1999 Cooper Institute study involving 22,000 men found the highest death rate among sedentary men with waist measurements under 34 inches, while the lowest death rate was found among fit men with waist measurements of 40 inches or more. A 1995 Blair study found that improved fitness (ie, going from "unfit" to "fit"), with the latter requiring a level of exercise equivalent to going for a brisk half-hour walk four or five times per week, reduced subsequent mortality rates by 50%. As Blair himself puts it, Americans have "a misdirected obsession with weight and weight loss. The focus is all wrong. It's fitness that is the key."
I'm a big fan of Michael Campos, debunker of the current North American assumption that skinny = healthy. He's given some space at the Guardian to defend his views, and I think he does an excellent job. If you're only going to read one thing I link to this month, make it this article (there's plenty more I didn't quote).
In almost all large-scale epidemiological studies, little or no correlation between weight and health can be found for a large majority of the population - and indeed what correlation does exist suggests that it is more dangerous to be just a few pounds "underweight" than dozens of pounds "overweight"...
Several recent studies indicate that the key to avoiding Type 2 diabetes is not to try to lose weight (indeed, there is much evidence that dieters are far more prone to the disease than average), but rather to make lifestyle changes in regard to activity levels and dietary content that greatly reduce the risk of contracting the disease, whether or not such changes lead to any weight loss...
In other words: Eat healthy and exercise, but don't obsess over whether it's going to cause you to lose ten pounds or not.
Over the past 20 years, scientists have gathered a wealth of evidence indicating that cardiovascular and metabolic fitness, and the activity levels that promote such fitness, are far more important predictors of both overall health and mortality risk than weight. Yet none of the studies most often cited for the proposition that fat kills makes any serious attempt to control for these variables.
The most extensive work of this sort has been carried out by Steven Blair and his colleagues at Dallas's Cooper Institute, involving more than 70,000 people. What they have discovered is that, quite simply, when researchers take into account the activity levels and resulting fitness of the people being studied, body mass appears to have no relevance to health whatsoever. In Blair's studies, obese people who engage in at least moderate levels of physical activity have around one half the mortality rate of sedentary people who maintain supposedly ideal weight levels.
Similarly, a 1999 Cooper Institute study involving 22,000 men found the highest death rate among sedentary men with waist measurements under 34 inches, while the lowest death rate was found among fit men with waist measurements of 40 inches or more. A 1995 Blair study found that improved fitness (ie, going from "unfit" to "fit"), with the latter requiring a level of exercise equivalent to going for a brisk half-hour walk four or five times per week, reduced subsequent mortality rates by 50%. As Blair himself puts it, Americans have "a misdirected obsession with weight and weight loss. The focus is all wrong. It's fitness that is the key."
I'm a big fan of Michael Campos, debunker of the current North American assumption that skinny = healthy. He's given some space at the Guardian to defend his views, and I think he does an excellent job. If you're only going to read one thing I link to this month, make it this article (there's plenty more I didn't quote).
