Skinny vs. Overweight: A Never Ending Debate

On Facebook, a page I like posted a link.  The title on the link said, "Why being fat is good for you..."  A debate was ensuing in the comments.  It's like people would rather see being thin as negative.  Sometimes you can't help be thin.  It's genetics that you are thin.  If yo want to be thin by choice and achieve it in negative ways, than that's  different.  They were trying to say that being overweight was better than being thin or skinny.  Why is there this battle between skinny, thin, or the word I like to use in slim vs. overweight, obese, etc..

After seeing this link, I went on to the good ol' Google and did a search.  I found an article by the Daily Mail and in the article it talked about how U.S. reasearchers said that being overweight can be good for you.  How being overweight helps you live longer, eliminate some diseases, etc..  That seems all well and good, but it also stats you will have other problems.  Basically, they've contradicted themselves.  Either way you chalk it up, being overweight is not good for you.  Cancer Research UK has stated that 6,000 cases of cancer in older women are linked to being fat.  Sure it's not a big percentage of the population, but still that's not something ignore.

Being overweight point blank is not healthy.  Sure you can make the arguement that you can be a healthy overweight person.  But doesn't that scream irony and oxymoronic?  Have you ever met a healthy overweight person?  I haven't.  But according to LiveScience.com, you apparently can be overweight and healthy.  In this article, they said that it's all about where you store your fat.  The bad fat is around your belly and not just under your skin.  Those healthy overweight people are metobolically more healthy.  From what I got from the article is that it has to do with your metabolism.  They also say in the article that just because you are metobalically healthy doesn't mean you shouldn't exercise and try to improve youself that way.  I agree.

You can find studies which they link in the article stating otherwise.  But it's a no-brainer, if even if you don't care, exercise and whatnot improves your health.  I know it and have been working at it slowly.  Very slowly...  Don't just take that article as black and white.  Even they state in the article that there is a grey area.  Talking about this with a friend, his stepdad said that doctors have come out and said that it's not true.

Let's switch to the otherside.  Let's look at the skiny, thin, or slim people.  I've been of the  notion that just because you are thin doesn't always make you healthy.  Just because you have the look of health doesn't mean you are.  But there are people out there that strongly believe that if you are thin than you are healthy.  That couldn't be further from the truth.

MSN Healthy Living, has a great article about thin people who are actually "fat."  It's not that they are fat on the outside, it's that they are fat on the inside.  If you don't do something about it, according to the article, you can have health problems later on in life.  What percentage of the world's population actually know that?  One thing they say, which is crazy, is that someone can have as much fat as an obese person on the inside.  Take a moment to think about that.  Mind has been blown, right?  Don't think because you have no signs or are not feeling any effects that you are fine.  For all you know you could have normal-weight obesity.  All that terms means is that you have high levels of body fat despite having body mass of 24.9 or lower and have normal weight.

You can't judge yourself based on how you look if you are "thin."  It's what's on the inside that you should be looking at.  According to Jimmy Bell, Ph.D., a professor of molecular imaging at the Imperial College at the University of London, skinny people—even supermodel types—can be superfat: “Everyone expects an overweight person to have lots of fat, but it can be a shock when a thin person has as much internal body fat as an obese, or even morbidly obese person.”

I wonder what percentage of the people in this world actually know they are fat on the inside.  They may not exhibit any signs of it, but later in life they will according to what I've been reading.  Don't let being thin fool you.  You could have more problems than you think.  You may not see them early on in life, but later in life you will.  So take care of yourself.  That's a common thing I've read.  Well, I'm paraphrasing.

The more I look into this, the more I find articles that are saying that you can be overweight and even slightly obese and live longer.  But there are also articles that refute this as well.  As I said, that doesn't mean you should be thinking you have nothing to worry about.  There are still other health risks you have to worry about.  What I'm getting out of this is that you have to find that balance.  It's hard to know which is correct in terms of fit and fat/overweight and living longer vs. fat is not fit/overweight won't help live longer.  I haven't see any articles refuting that you can't be both thin and fat on the inside.

There is so much to learn about this and you don't know who is right and who is wrong.  Certain people say their research is correct or people who refute it say their research is correct.  One thing I found while researching and looking into all of this is an article by myHealth on CTVNews.ca, they said that the American Medical Association declared obesity a disease in June of 2013.  There are people out there who are offended.  I don't blame them.  It is a cop out to call something that can be avoided a disease.  It is like giving people who don't care to do anything about it a way out.  Diseases have the potential to kill you.  Sure you will die from being overweight and obese, but you change that so you live longer or help yourself live longer.  But you can't always be sure you will live longer because you could fit and healthy, yet you could drop dead of a heart attack tomorrow.  That can do with genetics.  It is up to you to try and change that so future generations in your family don't have to worry about stuff like that.  Than again, I'm no expert.

Don't worry about what society tells you or shows you.  If you have half a brain and a mind of your own, than you'll be able to make your own decisions.  Don't let them influence how you think you should look physically.  You are smart enough to determine that.  Sure I find a little extra meat on women's bones to be very attractive.  I'm not into those ultra thin chicks that look like they should munch on a burger or two and put a little fat on their ass.  I get that some people are thin because of a variety of factors.  But each to their own.

At the end of this post, I'm just at the start of this all.  But looking at both sides, I can honestly tell you that neither side is better.  Even the sides within a side there is no one right answer.  This debate will be unending.  Regardless of that, people will think their point of view is right no what research refutes it.  No matter what, there is no right or wrong answer in this debate and in my lifetime there very well might not be.