This moderate risk category does not take into consideration other health factors like % body fat, blood pressure, blood sugar levels, and cholesterol readings. It is safe to assume that a fit lifestyle of frequent exercise and meticulous eating habits would grant someone the category of low risk. The individuals who are naturally in the “low risk” category are individuals who are “overweight”. A New York Times article recently published stated that people in the overweight category have the lowest death rate (Kolata).

Growing up I was always on the chubby side, but I have also always been pretty active. Throughout high school I took advanced p.e. classes, showing the skinny girls that a fat girl could keep up just as well. I gained interest in nutrition and dietetics the summer before I graduated as an undergraduate. I transitioned from working out about 2 times a week to working out everyday and permanently changing my diet to a healthier one. Now I work out every day of the week, I have a meticulous diet that excludes soda, chips, processed foods, and fast foods. For the first time in my life I can run a mile, and I am training to run a 5K race. Some of the nutrition community would consider me unhealthy and that I am endangering my life by being “obese”, but I just don’t think that is completely true. I am one of the healthiest people I know.

The real risk to the “war on fat” are people like Meme Roth (President/Founder National Action Against Obesity) who assume that just because you have some degree of body diversity from the anorexic ideal of today’s society that you are stuffing your face with junk food and sitting on your couch all day. In her various interviews she states how dangerous it is being overweight/obese but the weight on your body isn’t as big as an issue, as how you take care of your body with exercise and nutrition. “Researchers at Harvard University and Brigham Women’s Hospital, writing in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association, report that weekly physical activity was associated with as much as a 41% reduction in women’s cardiovascular disease risk” (Heatherton). This means that exercise is the main component to producing cardiovascular health, not weight.

“What that all adds up to, the researchers concluded, is that the other cardiovascular benefits of regular moderate exercise outweigh what you might, well, weigh. Most of the reduction in cardiovascular risk could be attributed to health effects you can’t see on the bathroom scale or in your clothing sizes” (Heatherton). Don’t get me wrong, I think that weight can be important for the very morbidly obese, but for most Americans (being overweight or obese), is not a death sentence for being unhealthy. You can be healthy and fat.

“People with the same height and weight could have radically different fitness levels, nutrition habits, blood pressure, blood sugars, and cholesterol numbers. They would have the same BMI, but totally different health profiles” (Wann). Being thin does not equate to being healthy, just as being overweight or obese does not equate to being unhealthy. The BMI charts boil it down to a single number, and people risk their lives, and their health to achieve this sometimes-unattainable goal. Diets have a failure rate of 90%, meaning it is a freak occurrence for diets to actually work. This means, “you have a better chance of surviving cancer than of losing weight and keeping it off” (Wann).

As nutritionists, I believe that we should be educating our clients how to be healthy and life a long life, not to conform to the anorexic ideals in today’s society. “We should be encouraging Americans to be physically active, to eat well, and to provide reasonable access to medical care for those among us who lack it. What we should not be doing is telling Americans that they will improve their health by trying to lose weight” (Campos).

Campos, Paul. The Obesity Myth New York: Gotham Books, 2004.

Gaesser, Glenn. “Obesity, Health and Metabolic Fitness.” Think Muslce: Bridging the gap between Science and Practice 18 Jan. 2008.

Heatherton, Todd. “Exercise Helps Your Heart even if You Don’t Lose Weight.” Tufts University Health and Nutrition Letter 25 (2008).

Kolata, Gina. “Causes of Death are linked to a Person’s Weight.” New York Times 7 Nov. 2007.

Lee, Robert and David Nieman. Nutritional Assessment New York: McGraw Hill, 2007.

Wann, Marilyn. FAT!SO? Berkeley:Ten Speed Press, 1998.

Americans eating disordered culture with it's loathing of the most minimal body diversity, its neurotic oscillation between guilt ridden bingeing and anorexic self-starvation, and its pathological fear of food, pleasure, and life itself. Indeed, our culture is ultimately all about fear and self-loathing and endless dissatisfaction.

Being 150lbs overweight has a risk association similar to that seen with light cigarette smoking

People with the same height and weight could have radically different fitness levels, nutrition habits, blood pressure, blood sugars, and cholesterol numbers. They would have the same BMI, but totally different health profiles.