Overweight & healthy?

Hi folks,

Something I saw in the media this week sparked me to do a little research to see if it’s possible to be overweight & healthy. Sounds a bit backwards I know but many people who have a high body fat percentage (i.e. calorie consumption) claim to eat healthily. There is much disagreement on this amongst medical professionals. Are these larger people saying that they are healthy as an excuse to not losing the weight, or does their size make them ‘who they are’, possibly making them mentally & physically happier?

The vast majority of us love food, definitely including myself. So if we exercise regularly & eat a healthy diet but of larger portions we should still be healthy right? Well our bodies will be getting all the vitamins they need but more energy (calories) than they can store so this will be stored as fat.

In this case, we will be fat but likely to be at no higher risk of the associated diseases than anyone else. For example, our blood sugar may be healthy (low diabetes risk), our ‘bad’ cholesterol & blood pressure may be low (lower cardiac disease risk). However the extra weight will cause muscular-skeletal issues stemming from joint pressure & reduced mobility.

So, a 150kg person who over-eats in healthy foods can eat more than a 150kg person who over-eats in fatty / sugary foods (1g carbs = 4 calories while 1g fat = 9 calories), & have healthier insides. But both people will not have good overall health due to the structural pressures of their weight.

Workplace health: For the reason mentioned above, to reduce sickness absence & raise top performance at work I recommend that the employer still needs to tackle ‘healthy’ & unhealthy obesity.  

Hope you found this interesting. I’d be really interested to hear your thoughts on this one!

James.