Especially if you're over 70, say researchers at the Western Australian Center for Health and Aging.
A recent study shows that normal-weight and obese patients over 70 had slightly higher levels of mortality than those whose BMIs put them into the overweight category--BMIs of 25 to 29.
In an article in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, the researchers said, "These results lend further credence to claims that the body mass index [BMI] thresholds for overweight and obese are overly restrictive for older people."
Makes sense to me--that "extra weight" is what Ellyn Satter describes as "nutritional resources." Food is fuel, folks. Your body needs food not just to power itself but to fuel resilience, especially as we get older.
Now I want to see them study this same notion in 60-year-olds. I'm curious about what the results might show.
Showing posts with label overweight and mortality. Show all posts
Showing posts with label overweight and mortality. Show all posts
Friday, January 29, 2010
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
We're getting there. . . .
And I know this from reading pieces like this in the New York Times. Turns out your performance on a treadmill test is a far better measure of your mortality risks than the numbers on a scale. We told you so!
So yes, it's better to be fat and fit than skinny and unfit. And yes, let's take a look at just how loaded words like fat and overweight are in our culture.
I can't wait for this kind of thinking to percolate down through the culture. Just last night I was at dinner with, among others, a woman who teaches others about exercise and fitness. She paid lip service to some of the "fat but fit" thinking, but her parting comment was so typical of this debate: "But it's still bad to be fat."
I'm sending her the link to this article. Hope she gets it.
So yes, it's better to be fat and fit than skinny and unfit. And yes, let's take a look at just how loaded words like fat and overweight are in our culture.
I can't wait for this kind of thinking to percolate down through the culture. Just last night I was at dinner with, among others, a woman who teaches others about exercise and fitness. She paid lip service to some of the "fat but fit" thinking, but her parting comment was so typical of this debate: "But it's still bad to be fat."
I'm sending her the link to this article. Hope she gets it.
Monday, April 28, 2008
More scare tactics?
This story from the AP adds yet another entry to the annals of fat and thin. It covers new research that claims to show that fat-but-fit is a figment of the fatties' imagination.
The new study followed some 39,000 women with an average age of 54 over a period of 11 years, tracking their weight, levels of physical activity, and incidence of heart disease. Says the article:
Compared with normal-weight active women, the risk for developing heart disease was 54 percent higher in overweight active women and 87 percent higher in obese active women. By contrast, it was 88 percent higher in overweight inactive women; and 2½ times greater in obese inactive women.
Makes you want to start that diet now, right? But it's important to note that the women in the study were self-reporting their levels of physical activity, and self-reporters tend to overestimate when it comes to things like how much exercise they get. Steven Blair of the University of South Carolina points out that fat people who passed a treadmill fitness test did not face higher mortality from heart disease, a fact that seems to support the self-reporters' loophole.
Despite this study's sensationalized headlines, we still have no idea what is and isn't true when it comes to fatness, fitness, and mortality. But we do know that on the whole, diets don't work; that being physically active is better for your health than being sedentary; and that, as Ellyn Satter has shown time and time again, it's much better to be a competent and joyful eater than to be obsessed, anxious, and fearful around food.
So don't despair when you come across this study and the many news reports about it. Read it in context, understand what it does and doesn't say, and dance as much as you want.
The new study followed some 39,000 women with an average age of 54 over a period of 11 years, tracking their weight, levels of physical activity, and incidence of heart disease. Says the article:
Compared with normal-weight active women, the risk for developing heart disease was 54 percent higher in overweight active women and 87 percent higher in obese active women. By contrast, it was 88 percent higher in overweight inactive women; and 2½ times greater in obese inactive women.
Makes you want to start that diet now, right? But it's important to note that the women in the study were self-reporting their levels of physical activity, and self-reporters tend to overestimate when it comes to things like how much exercise they get. Steven Blair of the University of South Carolina points out that fat people who passed a treadmill fitness test did not face higher mortality from heart disease, a fact that seems to support the self-reporters' loophole.
Despite this study's sensationalized headlines, we still have no idea what is and isn't true when it comes to fatness, fitness, and mortality. But we do know that on the whole, diets don't work; that being physically active is better for your health than being sedentary; and that, as Ellyn Satter has shown time and time again, it's much better to be a competent and joyful eater than to be obsessed, anxious, and fearful around food.
So don't despair when you come across this study and the many news reports about it. Read it in context, understand what it does and doesn't say, and dance as much as you want.
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