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Does Being Overweight Mean You're Unhealthy?

By Peter Liu

[Weight Loss]

Learn why being overweight isn’t the greatest indicator of your overall health. Peter Liu squeezes out the sensible way to avoid the obesity hype.

Now that the weather is finally starting to let up, it’s time to go outside again to enjoy the outdoors, along with everything that Mother Nature has to offer in the bright and sunny seasons of the year. Of course, when that trickles down to North American society, a large part of those bright and sunny seasons will be full of burgers, fries, barbeques, chips, soda, hot dogs, chilli, bacon, ribs and other tasty meats roasted and spiced for flavour over some sort of spit. All those things will be washed down by huge amounts of liquor or beer in a backyard or a patio. There comes the desire for a more cleansing type of diet, when considering the sheer amount of food that companies are raring to sell you once the weather gets a little bit warmer, and constant reminders of a premature death by obesity don’t really help the situation.

Doom Study

In a scary, government health warning-style study published online in the medical journal The Lancet, Oxford University researchers have equated obesity to be as dangerous as smoking. British researchers looked at 57 obesity studies done mostly in Europe and North America, following up on almost a million people for about 10 to 15 years. The studies used Body Mass Index (BMI) as the primary measurement, dividing weight in kilograms by height in metres squared. A person with a BMI of 25 to 29 is classified as overweight, while a BMI of 30 and above is classified as obese. Researchers found that people who were moderately obese (BMI 30 to 35) had their lives cut short by three years and that the morbidly obese (BMI 40+) had their lives cut short by almost 10 years, akin to smoking all your life. The study also stated that the obese are two-thirds more likely to die from heart attacks or stroke, four times more likely to die from diabetes, kidney or liver problems, and a sixth more likely to die of cancer.

Counter-Argument

A more sensible approach (and line of thought) is being taken by a top obesity doctor here in Canada. Dr. Arya Sharma believes being overweight doesn’t necessarily mean being unhealthy and that weight loss options should be recommended to those most at risk. Dr. Sharma is the chairman for cardiovascular obesity research and management at the University of Alberta and scientific director of the Canadian Obesity Network. He claims there is evidence to suggest that large proportions of overweight people are metabolically healthy and that the complexity of “benign obesity” hasn’t been considered much until now. To this end, Dr. Sharma along with Dr. Robert Kushner of Northwestern University in Chicago are devising a 5-stage system to grade obesity patients. Stage 0 is classified as no apparent obesity-related risk with normal ranges, but Stages 2 and 3 involve heart failure, diabetes and sleep apnea. The stages go up to 4, but the treatment recommendations for stage 0 to 1 only include counselling, to prevent further weight gain.

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