Much of what we know about obesity is inaccurate

The way the media portrays an ideal and “healthy” body weight as something “beautiful” and those who are “fat” as something unattractive, plus the increasing pressure by the medical community to lose weight has stressed people particularly during the last 50 years. Claiming that being overweight is ‘unhealthy’ and that you need to shed pounds to live longer and reduce your chances of getting sick has opened up a market for the diet industry of an unprecedented magnitude. But, what if just about everything we have been taught about being overweight has been wrong all along?

Much of the medical community frowns upon people who are overweight. For the most part doctors advise them to lose weight in order to control systolic blood pressure, avoid cholesterolemia (abnormal proportions of cholesterol in the blood), and reduce your chances of getting diabetes - all combined to “prevent” CVD (Cardiovascular Disease), which causes heart attacks.

In a study published in 2016, shows that people who are underweight are more likely to get diabetes than those who are obese. This previous study seems to back up a 2009 German meta-analysis done about of the body’s BMI (Body Mass Index) and it’s relation to disease and mortality. This analysis showed that people with a BMI between 25-30 (Overweight) had a lower mortality rate than those who had a BMI of <18.5 (Underweight). What’s even more surprising is that even those who had a BMI greater than 35 (Morbidly obese) had less mortality rate than those who were ‘underweight.’ Visit the ncbi.gov website for more info on these studies.