While shopping over the holidays, I ran into an old friend. “It’s great to see you, but you’re literally half the person I remember,” I told her. She had dramatically lost weight, having recently undergone a gastric bypass – a stomach stapling surgery performed on obese people to rapidly lose weight.
I had always considered her a healthy person even at the peak of her weight. She enjoyed exercise and the outdoors, and she was the one who had encouraged my brother and me to compete in a half-triathlon which consists of a quarter mile swim, a 17-mile bike ride, and a 5K run. At the finish line, she was there to greet us as my brother came in second to last just a few minutes in front of me at the 2004 Pacific Grove Triathlon. In her gender and age category, she performed well and finished in the middle of the pack. In spite of her size, she was brimming with health and fitness.
To see her now so slim, I was struck by the question: Is thin necessarily healthy?
This past October, I attended the West Coast premier of a documentary, America the Beautiful Sequel: Thin Commandments, on our nation’s obsession with dieting. The film provided great food for thought on the controversial subject of how unattainable and idealized media body images influence and drive the very profitable diet industry.
The filmmaker and star, Darryl Roberts, begins by getting a physical where the doctor informs him that he is obese and has a few other heath issues like an arrhythmic heart and high blood pressure. At first, the doctor prescribes drugs for the ailments, but when Roberts asks about alternatives, the doctor recommends losing weight.
During Roberts’ weight-loss regimen, he intertwines interviews with people in different groups; health professionals, nutritionists, overweight but healthy people, thin yet unhealthy people, fitness-obsessed people and the quick-fix crowd.
The interviews were fascinating. A distorted body-image can lead to eating disorders. In the thin yet unhealthy group, a middle-aged woman described her struggles with anorexia and the impact it had on her family and friends especially when her insurance company dropped her from her rehabilitation program. In the same group, a couple of high school boys described their struggles to look good by starving themselves.
Meeting my friend who had recently lost so much weight reminded me of an individual interviewed for the documentary from the overweight but healthy group. The woman in the documentary was obviously overweight; however, she was very active and enjoyed dancing several times a week. At a medical appointment, her doctor suggested she consider regular walking to help reduce weight. She laughed because taking walks would be a drastic reduction of her current physical activity level. Otherwise, all other measures (blood pressure, cholesterol levels, sugar levels, heart rate, etc) indicated good health.
In the film, Roberts points out the difficulty of defining “healthy.” One method used by many health professionals to measure body fat and determine a “healthy” weight is the BMI (body-mass index). The one-size-fits-all formula based on height and weight is flawed, Roberts claims. He makes reference to a 1998 decision by the National Institute of Health to adopt stricter guidelines. Overnight, once this guideline was established, without gaining one pound, 29 million Americans went from healthy to overweight or obese. Their label changed not because of their actual weight, but because of the new BMI. The $50 billion-a-year diet industry benefited greatly by the changing of the standards. In the film, he lists a group of celebrities who are either overweight or obese according to current BMI recommendations. The list includes Tom Cruise, Will Smith, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Christian Bale and LeBron James, none of whom most people would consider fat.
After starting and failing at different diets, Roberts quits altogether. In the process of finding a balance between dieting and exercise, he discovers that he enjoys bicycling and continues to ride even after abandoning diets. When he returns for his check-up, the doctor is pleased that his blood pressure is normal and his abnormal heart beat has improved even without weight loss. Although Roberts is not “thin,” he had become healthier. I didn’t get a chance to ask my friend, but I sincerely hope she is still enjoying the outdoors and an active lifestyle.
As the New Year begins and people resolve to lose the few extra pounds gained over the holidays, remember you don’t have to be thin to be healthy. All it takes is a sense of purpose, a positive outlook on life, and a little bit of exercise.
