So, it doesn’t increase the risk of dying from most illnesses to be 15-30 pounds ‘overweight,’ or to have a Body-Mass Index (BMI) of up to 30, according to a study published by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in JAMA, the Journal of the American Medical Association. Being highly obese can still lead to some problems, the study finds, but it doesn’t make much difference at all to be just a bit heavier than the ‘ideal’ people have decided on.
Except that it might keep you alive. You see, another finding in the same study was that people who are about 15 pounds ‘overweight’ actually are more likely to survive some illnesses.
The AP article on this study in the Oakland Tribune expressed absolute shock and dumbfoundedness about this finding. How in the world could it be healthier to be even one pound fatter than a stick figure? Being skinny is supposed to be an ultimate, unmediated good! Does this mean we have to stop harassing fatter people as if they are committing an ongoing, mortal sin?
But it’s hard to be surprised at the ‘news’ that being a little bit fat helps you get through periods of sickness. Duh. Don’t we all know that? Haven’t we all seen friends or family members get sick and visibly drop weight? Well, then, how could it not be better for someone in that situation to have a little buffer weight, instead of being nearly-bone-thin and then losing even more weight because of illness?
The article cites as one remaining supposed danger of being slightly ‘overweight’ (we have to retain some reason to feel smug about being thinner than other people, now, don’t we, mainstream media?): that being overweight could lead, down that slippery slope, to being obese. Yet, the article fails to note the equally obvious observation that being underweight can lead just as easily to anorexia or bulimia or other forms of starvation.
It never seems to cross the minds of these folks who are so concerned about other people’s eating habits that eating too little and being too thin is a problem worth their concern. Even when research smacks them in the face, these journalists and scientists and businesspeople and others cannot even fathom that their moral hierarchy of size, which deems overweight people second-class citizens, might be wrong.
What would they do without their prejudices? Perhaps do real science?
