Myth: Fat is Unhealthy
By: Shaunta Grimes
Tags: Fitness, Lifestyle, 2019 Challenge, Health, Weight Loss

My friend Pattie Thomas wrote a fantastic book called Taking Up Space where she looks at 10 myths about being fat. I thought it might be fun to revisit them, from the other side of weight loss surgery.

Starting with this myth: Fat is Unhealthy.

It seems to me that the “fat is unhealthy” meme goes beyond myth.

It’s become part of the dominant Western culture’s social identity. Fat is unhealthy is a statement that is so wildly and widely accepted that suggesting that it isn’t set-in-stone fact is a counter-cultural act.

But what if we’re looking at it all wrong?

I have never had high blood pressure, high cholesterol, high blood sugar, or any of the lifestyle illnesses commonly associated with being fat. Not now that I’ve lost some weight. Not when I weighed nearly 400 pounds.

This is not because I’m some kind of good fatty. It is not about morals at all.

It’s about genetics.

There is no one on either side of my family who has ever had diabetes, heart disease, or high blood pressure. I have a remarkably low genetic predisposition for any of those health issues.

But all of my grandparents and my mother died of cancer. My dad is a cancer survivor. Also, arthritis runs high in my family. So does sleep apnea. In my family, people have those problems regardless of their weight.

I have arthritis — in my hips. And I was diagnosed with sleep apnea three years ago.

When I finally had weight loss surgery I was in so much pain, I was worried about my mobility. And, I was wearing what looked like Darth Vader’s mask attached to a vacuum hose on my face every night so that I could sleep and breathe at the same time.

The treatment for both arthritis of weight bearing joints and sleep apnea is weight loss. The chances are good, however, that I would have had both problems even if I was never fat.

Because I’m at a higher risk than average for breast cancer (my mother and my dad’s mother both died from it), losing weight gave me a better chance of early detection. Mammograms are easier on people who have less body fat.

So, it’s easy to see how weight gets conflated with health.

It’s scary being fat.

Socially, it’s a nightmare. There’s no hiding it. No pretending. And you know, every minute of every day, that every one you meet is judging you.

And yeah, if you’re very, very fat things start to break down. Not indiscriminately, but along the fault lines that were already there.

But when you’re fat, everyone is pretty damned sure you’re going to drop dead soon of a stroke or diabetes or a heart attack. Everyone who sees you knows that you’re going to die. And everyone has a solution for you — often the solutions are contradictory.

Eat less fat. Eat only fat. Eat less carbs. Eat plant based. Exercise a lot. Exercise a little. Forget exercise and just go keto.

Everyone knows how to save your life — and since you’re fat, obviously you need that.

Obviously fat people are not healthy. If you don’t have some kind of lifestyle disease yet, well that’s like jumping off a bridge and deciding you’re fine because you’re not dead yet half way down.

But, what if we’re looking at it backward?

Are some fat people unhealthy? Clearly. How ridiculous if they weren’t. Fat isn’t the fountain of youth or some sort of magic elixir.

Some fat people do have health problems.

Here’s a news flash: some slender people do as well.

Some of all types of people do.

But, when you try to talk to many people about the idea that body size is not a reliable health indicator, you often hear something like, “well, what about your heart/a stroke/diabetes? Do you want to die?”

Here’s the thing: everyone dies.

Fat people, thin people and in-betweenie people. All people. All animals. All plants. All living things. It’s the trade off for living.

There are bristle cone pine trees where I lived most of my life. These suckers live forever–except they don’t really. Eventually, even they die.

It happens to all of us. It is the great equalizer.

The thing is that being fat happens hand-in-hand with those lifestyle diseases. But it’s not necessarily the cause.

Obesity and no exercise = very, very scary.

Adding exercise to your day alleviates many of the health risks even you are obese and even if you don’t lose weight. This doctor calls exercise medicine and talks about it in terms of dosage.

Some people don’t exercise and/or they eat beyond past the point of being full. These things, not moving enough and eating too much, often result in health issues for people of all sizes.

Which is why there are thin people who have strokes or diabetes or heart disease.

Those things also often cause people to weigh somewhat above their natural set point.

Sometimes people eat too much and don’t exercise, but have a combination of genetics that allows these behaviors to not cause weight gain. These people are still at risk for so-called obesity-related health problems.

Some people lose and gain and lose and gain themselves right into health problems, when they would have been healthier if they left good enough alone.

There are real, serious dangers in equating fat with health.

Almost any fat person has a story of going to see a doctor for a health problem, and leaving with a photocopy of a low-carb/low-fat/low-protein diet of some kind, or a brochure for a weight loss clinic, or a referral to Weight Watchers.

This is wrong on so many levels, not the least of which is that it discourages doctors from listening to their patients with an open mind and it discourages fat people from being patients when they need to be.

Equating fat with health also puts some fat people in the position of believing that they have no hope of health. If they won’t ever be thin and that means they can never feel good, what’s the point of learning to eat intuitively or getting any exercise?

Another problem is that while some of us are so busy turning fat into a moral failing, it is sometimes a symptom of a serious health problem that goes undiagnosed because the fat person is too scared to go to yet another doctor or the doctor can’t see the forest for the fat.

The flip side of equating fat with lack of health is equating thinness with health. This results in some people believing that they don’t have to move or eat intuitively for their health, because they are not fat, when really these things are healthful for every single body.

Sometimes fat people are unhealthy. Sometimes skinny people are, too.

It is unfortunate that if you happen to be both fat and sick, you have a good chance of being blamed for your health problem in a way a thin person almost never will.

It is also unfortunate that if you are a slender person, this may cause your doctor to mistake your body type for health that isn’t there.