Being Overweight Doesn't Always Mean Being Unhealthy
By Debbe Geiger
Three years ago, John Viollis was applying for health insurance over the phone when the representative asked him his age, height and weight.
"I was six feet, 220 pounds," Viollis recalls telling the insurance salesman. The man "hesitated for a split second and said, 'Oh. That would put you in our high-risk category. According to our standards you would be considered overweight.' For my height, they said I should weigh 178 pounds, which would have made me look anorexic." At the time, Viollis was competing as an athlete in track and field.
"Years ago I had trained and competed for the 1980 and '84 Summer Olympic games as a decathelete and javelin thrower. I was still working out all the time," says Viollis, now 47 and owner of the Personal Best Fitness Studio in Merrick.
When the representative came to Viollis' Massapequa Park home, he saw Viollis was fit, but the experience left Viollis frustrated. "People equate being overweight with being out of shape. That's a misconception. Weight is not [the only] determining factor for your level of fitness." Doctors, government agencies and society place so much emphasis on attaining the proper weight and weight loss that the idea of being statistically overweight and physically fit almost seems inconceivable.
For example, obesity has been described in some news reports as a "disease," and the "second leading cause of preventable death" in the United States. That's because the 1997 National Health Interview Survey found that more than 50 percent of U.S. adults or about 97 million Americans are overweight and one in five adults is obese.
Jodi Wright, a registered dietician at Total Wellness in Bay Shore, said a person is overweight if his or her body weight is between 10 and 20 percent more than what is considered ideal for his or her height. One is obese if his or her weight exceeds the ideal by more than 20 percent.
The Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta reports that overweight or obese people are at risk for a variety of chronic health conditions, including hypertension, high cholesterol, heart disease, stroke, diabetes and even some cancers.
In 1998, an editorial in the New England Journal of Medicine reported that "at any given time of the year, an astonishing 15 to 35 percent of Americans are trying to lose weight. The goal is to reach the elusive American ideal-to be slim, fit and forever young." The health risks of an overweight person are sometimes determined using a method called body mass index or BMI, which compares weight to height. But many exercise researchers say that neither the BMI nor the number on the scale tells the whole story. In fact, they point to studies showing that overweight people who exercise regularly have a lower risk of premature death than thin men and women who don't exercise.
"There are many overweight people who have good muscle tone because they exercise regularly and they eat balanced diets," says Marlisa Brown, a registered dietician in Bay Shore. "They may have good cholesterol and blood pressure readings. They may just be overweight because they consume more calories than they burn." Virginia Porcello knows that firsthand. When she was 19, she says, "I was flat on my back at 400 pounds. I couldn't move." By her late 20s, Porcello realized she had to make a change. "Everyone told me if I just lose weight I'll be healthier and happier. One doctor gave me diet pills. Then I met a trainer who said let's forget about losing weight. He taught me to focus on my muscles.
I was more in touch with what was happening to my body. That was very helpful to me." Along the way Porcello lost more than 200 pounds. Today, at 51, she says she still is a large woman. "I'm a size 18, but I'm healthy and I feel great. I work out twice a week doing strength training. I do cardiovascular work every day for 30 minutes to an hour, either walking or I go to the gym. I have no medical problems. My blood pressure is down and it's been that way for more than 20 years. I've incorporated doing more physical activity into my life, so I don't have to think about it as if I have to exercise to lose weight." As director of Solutions Program for Eating Disorders in Roslyn Heights, Porcello works with compulsive eaters and the overweight and obese population.
She says the constant focus on weight loss frustrates many overweight and obese people. "Usually they come to me because they are told they have to lose weight and that's their struggle. It's hard for them to get away from thinking about diet and weight loss and being thinner. In this society, we've come to believe that lean is synonymous with healthy and fat is synonymous with unhealthy, but that's not necessarily true. We change the focus for them to getting healthier rather than on losing weight." As Porcello can attest, the irony is when you release the pressure to lose weight and teach people to accept their bodies and learn to love themselves, they lose weight anyhow. "By taking the pressure away they're able to achieve things in a different way. It really is a process of helping them come to terms with being healthier and taking care of their body. It's about building up their self-esteem."
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