Why is weight loss glorified?

Many of us grew up with Barbie Dolls, watching movies with Disney Princesses and TV shows starring glamorous actresses.  The ideal put before us at a young age, particularly for girls, is of a waif-like, buxom beauty.  Models are size 0 women, twig-thin, emaciated.  We are programmed to want to attain that status, whether we admit it to ourselves or not.  It's there, secretly whispering to us, what we want to be, what we should be, what we value.

It came as somewhat of a shock to me in the past year or so, as I've been doing projects and during my clinical dietetic internship, that being overweight is not as bad for your health as it's made out to be in the media.

It is true that morbidity and mortality increases with weight.  Heart disease, diabetes, everything that we're told will kill us because of those extra pounds becomes more likely.  But it's a gradual increase in risk.  For a BMI between 25-29.9 (considered "overweight"), research has shown LOWER mortality rates than those for normal weight individuals.  This is especially true the older you get.  If you take the flip side and look at morbidity and mortality risk in underweight individuals (BMI < 18.5), the risk for disease and death skyrockets. Why?

During sickness, particularly infections, when your immune system is up and running at full steam, your digestive system gets turned down.  Remember not feeling hungry the last time you ran a fever?  That's your immune system doing its job.  Not only does your body shunt energy away from running digestion to run your immune system, but it's trying to keep nutrients away from whatever bugs are inhabiting you so it's better able to get rid of them.  Depending on the severity of the illness, this may last for days or weeks.  If you don't come into it with some energy stored away as fat, the body has no choice but to start breaking down muscle for fuel during times of starvation, and your chances for survival start going down quickly.  Your favorite supermodel would be taken down by the flu far faster than those of us with some extra padding.

In cancer patients, survival is directly correlated with the patient's weight going into treatment.  Many doctors won't even try a newer, experimental, or aggressive treatment option if a patient is underweight or even normal weight.  It is fully expected for a patient to lose some weight during most chemotherapy and radiation treatments, and if the patient doesn't have the weight to lose, that treatment suddenly does not become an option.  Most of the nutrition battle for cancer patients is finding ways to get enough calories, the opposite of what the rest of us are programmed to do.

This isn't to say that you should abandon reasonably healthy eating practices or forget your exercise routine.  I'm not advocating for obesity (BMI > 30) or pigging out with reckless abandon.  But we should be more forgiving of ourselves for those pesky last 10-20lbs that won't go away no matter how hard we torture ourselves about them.  Someday, they may just be what helps keep you alive.

Treat your body right.  Eat whole grains, fruits and vegetables but also eat some of what you enjoy.  Exercise regularly, but make it something you like to do.  Find successes in actions, not the number on the scale.  Your body will be at the weight it's meant to be at, and that will be your ideal.  Weight loss in and of itself is not what should be glorified.  Health is.