What the obesity industry doesn't want you to know

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Get fat, live longer

What the obesity industry doesn't want you to know

Last updated on Monday, Jul. 27, 2009 03:40AM EDT

Manhattanites have gained another reason to feel insufferably smug. This week,

they learned they are the thinnest people in their state, and probably their

entire country. America may be one big tub of lard, but not them Compared to

those fat slobs in the Bronx, they are paragons of fitness, health and virtue.

In Manhattan (as in the urban upper echelons of Canada, only more so), thin is a

religion. It's a mark of status and prestige, not to mention ferocious

dedication to fashion, dieting and working out. The thinnest people of all, no

coincidence, also tend to be the richest. As the saying goes, the smaller the

woman, the bigger the apartment.

Over in the chubby Bronx, social planners are raising the alarm. They're

demanding more stores with fresh produce, better public transit, more parks,

bans on trans fats and junk food in schools, more programs to promote physical

activity, more public education about obesity, and lots more government money.

In fact, the Bronx sounds an awful lot like Canada.

Thin was always in. But now, the social and public-health message is that fat is

not simply a sign of sloth. It kills. The obesity epidemic is the greatest

health crisis of the age. According to various health statistics (which are

never consistent), between 17 per cent and 25 per cent of Canadian adults are

obese. Thirty-six per cent of the adult population is overweight, or maybe

two-thirds. Whatever. It's a catastrophe.

But is it? A new study based on Statistics Canada population data reaches an

exceedingly awkward conclusion: People who are overweight live longer than

people who are classified as " normal " weight. Not only that, people who are

classified as significantly overweight also live longer.

The study, led by Statistics Canada's Orpana, was devised to estimate

the relationship between body mass index and mortality in Canadian adults. The

database was nearly 12,000 people. The authors of the Canada-U.S. joint study

adjusted for age, gender, smoking, physical activity and alcohol consumption.

They found that the link between weight and mortality is relatively weak. The

strongest finding was that underweight men are at greater risk than any other

group.

But being overweight was associated with a 25-per-cent lower risk of dying.

Being obese was associated with a 12-per-cent lower risk of dying. The risk for

the most morbidly obese (who account for less than 3 per cent of all Canadians)

was statistically the same as the risk for people of " normal " weight. The

findings were published online in the research journal Obesity.

" Overweight may not be the problem we thought it was, " said Feeny, a

senior investigator at Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research in Oregon,

almost apologetically. " Overweight was protective. " He added that agencies such

as Health Canada might want to rethink the way they classify people's weight.

BMI - which is expressed as a simple height-weight ratio - has replaced the old

insurance tables as the universal gauge for " healthy " weight. Its goalposts were

recast in 1998, with the result that millions of previously healthy people were

suddenly redefined as overweight. Today, a BMI of between 18.5 and 24.9 is

considered " normal, " a BMI of 25 to 29.9 " overweight, " 30 to 34.9 " obese, " 35 to

39.9 " severely obese " and over 40 " morbidly obese. " By this measure, a 5-foot-4

woman is overweight at 146 pounds, obese at 175 lbs. and morbidly obese at 233

lbs. A 6-foot man is overweight at 184 lbs., obese at 221 lbs., and morbidly

obese at 295 lbs. If you go by BMI, most Canadians in their 50s are too fat.

Is this study just a fluke? On the contrary. It confirms the findings of dozens

of other large population studies that rarely get publicity. They all conclude

that being overweight is not a problem, except at the extreme. In fact, a little

extra padding is good for you.

" Decades of medical research that contradicts our popularized beliefs rarely

reaches the public, " says Sandy Swarcz, the brains behind the invaluable website

junkfoodscience.com, where you can find a more detailed dissection of the

Canadian results.

In 2005, another researcher, Flegel, of the U.S. Centers for Disease

Control and Prevention, published another large study with similar findings.

Prominent health experts were outraged, calling the research flawed. " There's

not a lot of money in trying to debunk obesity, but a huge amount in making sure

it stays a big problem, " Basham, a professor of health-care policy at

s Hopkins University, told The Associated Press.

Researchers and public-health authorities are heavily invested in obesity. So

are major drug companies, which help fund influential bodies such as the

International Obesity Task Force. The Canadian Obesity Network, which gets

millions in government funding, lists dozens of leading drug companies as its

" industry partners. "

Here's more bad news for all those folks who are nagging us about our weight.

The evidence is very clear that, unless you are morbidly obese with health

problems, losing lots of weight is bad for you, not good.

For reasons that are not well understood, people who lose substantial amounts of

weight, or go up and down on yo-yo diets, suffer long-term adverse health

effects. Oprah is an absolutely terrible role model, along with all the folks

featured on America's Biggest Loser. As one expert told Newsweek, " People show

an improvement in short-term risk factors [blood pressure and blood sugar

levels], but they die. I don't think that's a good outcome. "

So who are the healthiest people of them all? Dear reader, they may well be

people just like you - aging boomers who have reluctantly succumbed to

middle-aged spread. Reubin Andres of the U.S. National Institute on Aging

reviewed all the major population studies and found that people who gain a pound

or so a year in middle age live the longest.

That extra weight is protective, especially for women. So relax. God doesn't

want you to fit into your old jeans.

I am now obliged to add that none of this excuses bad eating habits or sloth.

Diet and exercise - especially exercise - are clearly linked to health. But

unless you are unusually thin or extremely obese - categories that describe less

than 5 per cent of all Canadians - your weight doesn't matter too much. Despite

the alleged obesity epidemic, our life expectancy continues to increase, and

deaths by heart attack and stroke continue to decline.

Sadly, we're not likely to see headlines any time soon that say, " Ninety-five

per cent of us have weight that is okay. " Not when we're all convinced that

socially, if not medically, we're too fat, and that we'd be vastly better off if

only we could shed those extra 20 or 30 or 40 pounds. So just remember this:

Those fashionably anorexic Manhattanites are the ones we envy. But the people in

the Bronx will have the last laugh.

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