Sarah Blake
Exploding the Mythology
Dr Dean Edell
Much of this information was taken from the Adiposity 101 web page.
Sharon Curtis's page on Health Information About Fatness also provides useful information.
Myth 1: Fat people are gluttonous and out of control
The one thing almost all research agrees on is that many fat people neither eat more nor exercise less than 'normal' people.Being fat is not primarily caused by the environment, but by genetically determined factors. Recent obesity research has disproven public stereotypes and the conventional wisdom of most health professionals. Identical twins grow up with virtually the same body fatness, even when raised by different families, while adopted children raised by fat parents are no fatter than those raised by thin parents.
Some rat strains have been bred which gain weight even when restricted to the same caloric intake as their slim littermates.
Myth 2: Dieting leads to weight loss
Well, you'd have thought it was obvious, wouldn't you?Actually, recent research has shown that dieting is a major cause of obesity. The figures are fairly self explanatory.
| Long term success rate of dieting: | 1 percent |
| Number of people who regain more weight than they lose: | 30 percent |
Dieting depresses the metabolic rate so that calories are burned more slowly, and as fat cells shrink, they become more responsive to the action of insulin and do not release their contents as readily.
In a 1986 Dutch study, men who experienced many life events in a short period showed a gain in body mass. A year later this weight gain had disappeared in almost all subgroups of these men. The exception was the subgroup that tried to lose weight by dieting; those who dieted gained yet more weight.
A study of those few people who manage to maintain their weight loss showed that this is possible only by continued semistarvation. This is hardly a normal, nor a natural, state of affairs.
Myth 3: Well, lose weight by exercising then
Shan't.In a study in 1993, no relationship was found between baseline physical activity level and subsequent weight gain among either men or women. Recreational physical activity reported at the baseline interview had little relationship to later weight gain. There was little or no association between baseline physical activity and the risk of becoming obese, but a strong association with follow-up physical activity.
In other words, it's not that we become fat through lack of exercise, it's that we don't (or can't) exercise because we're fat.
And anyway, individuals vary widely in their metabolic response to exercise. Even putting subjects on the same supervised exercise regime led to wildly different reduction of body fat percentage, from 49% to 1%.
Body fatness is directly correlated with skeletal muscle fibre type. Lean subjects have more "slow fibres" well endowed with mitochondria that use fatty acids as energy source. Corpulent subjects have fewer "slow fibres" but more "fast fibres" that only burn glucose; they cannot burn fat for energy. Any energy shortfall is therefore made good at the expense of a drop in blood sugar (causing tiredness) and increase in lactate plasma (aching muscles). This represents a metabolic limitation on exercise by the obese.
Myth 4: At any rate, fat people ought to lose weight
Actually, weight loss can be dangerous. The act of losing weight, especially on very low calorie diets, can lead to gallstones, hair loss, memory problems, cardiac arrhythmias and death.More than that, over 95 percent of dieters regain all the weight they lost within five years. And then go on another diet. The effects of all this weight cycling are worse than maintaining a steady high weight. Weight cycling (or yo-yo dieting) can double a person's relative mortality risk.
Myth 5: Thin people are healthier
Bollocks. Well, at least one bollock.There are studies which, however fraught with methodological problems, have shown that a Body Mass Index over 27 is associated with statistically significant health risks.
How from this we get to the conclusion that the ideal body weight is at or below a BMI of 21 I have no idea. Not to mention that weights at or below the 'ideal' are also associated with increased health risks. If you want to be healthy, be a little plump.
Myth 6: Fat is a health hazard
Prove it. Go on. I'm listening.Prove it unconfounded by lower levels of Human Growth Hormone, insulin intolerance, by the effects of the yo-yo dieting almost all fat people have tried.
Some of the 'health problems' are even associated with discrimination against large people by the medical establishment. There have been various cases of fat people getting substandard medical treatment, not to mention the understandable reluctance to go present yourself to your doctor's criticism.
|
True Story: In my first year at university I saw a counsellor
for depression. But she didn't want to hear what I had to say: her
instant conclusion was that I was depressed because I was fat, and the
only cure was to lose weight. She even tried to make me go to an
eating disorders self-help group. Well, I'd already got rid of the only
eating disorder I ever had when I stopped dieting. I decided to deal with my
subsequent self-abuse problems and suicidal impulses on my own.
In case you're interested, my depression was eventually tracked down to a physiological root - nothing to do with my weight at all. Yet this woman, to whom I had gone for help, would have gladly started me back on the vicious circle of weight cycling, depression and self-esteem loss. |
To the medical profession: Thanks a bunch. Bitter? Damn right I am. And I'm not taking it any more.
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