Acknowledging Fat Health

A couple of studies have come out recently which are ceasing to pretend fatness is the same as ill health. A meta-analysis from the German Institute of Human Nutrition at the University of Tubingen and another one using data from an Irish study into, well, the report says heart disease. The study they link to says metabolic syndrome.

Fatness which meets this definition has been given a working title of "[metabolically] healthy obesity, referring of course to what us the much derided, anti-science kamakzes of FA have been saying, fatness is a size not the state of your health.

That isn't mentioned in reports, but some fatz in the public eye are quoted as having said similar. So, courage mes braves of the media, you're getting there. 

I'd like to see this as progress but "obesity science's" ideologically induced circularity mitigates against it. 'Tis is more of a throwback to about 15-20 years ago, before tide of elective delusion became wholly dominant, drowning out respect for acknowledging the patently obvious. So forgive my not being overly enthused.

Anyway, this subset of fat people do not have the metabolic markers which are deemed to raise risk of health crises. These factors are said to reflect inflammation which is currently thought to be at the heart of the fatty boo boo.

the [German] study found that lower levels of some inflammatory markers, including C-reactive protein (CRP), TNF-alpha, and IL-6 could still make someone metabolically healthy, even with an obese BMI — 35 percent of obese people don’t have metabolic health disorders, according to MedPageToday

Though others claim its lower, 1 in 4. One of these markers is central 'obesity' which is somewhat ill defined as it reflects a shape as well as a trait one's body can acquire. Now, there's nothing to say the mechanics of that shape aren't more riskier, in certain contexts, but it seems hardly useful to de-contextualize a shape and fuse it with an aspect of one's physique and label it problematic. It's more important to find out how that shape functions differently. And this need to be on warning mode forgets to see whether this is advantageous, that is part of filling in the overall picture. Is overall shape the same as it being a trait in another phenotype?

There's at times a conflation made of health-absence of sickness-and fitness-physical conditioning. You can be fit and have bad health and unfit and but healthy. It would also be interesting to know how much of this healthy fatness is down to the body having a good flow of energy. As promoted by HAES.

The sense that some fat people's energy is flowing well, yet they cannot sustainably, get much slimmer begs an intriguing question. It illustrates something of what I mean when I say, fatness is not a metabolic or phenotype as CI/CO has taught us to assume.

Selling this on the money saving possibilities of targeting interventions on those with actual issues, means someone's coming to terms with the obvious. You cannot carelessly turn millions people into sickness whilst complaining about cost. To be fair, that was probably on the assumption that dieting would make this irrelevant.

Ooops.

Doubts about context of these markers aside. There appears to be some potential conflation of signs of body growth/fat storage and differences in function of fatter bodies in comparison with slimmer ones. Especially if you use the latter as the default.

More investigation could lead to lead to help not only for fat people with 'risk' factors, but potentially others with them too.

Looking at inflammation;

They also had higher adiponectin levels — an anti-inflammatory hormone — and a lower white blood cell count, which is usually elevated in response to inflammation

A question occurs, what does that mean in the context of fatness? How is it judged? We know building muscles is about loading and straining them. When the muscle fibres repair, they're bulkier. That's deemed a form of inflammation. 

It does have an air of plausibility about it though. Targeting it could have real merit. Clearly, there are shared parallels between cardiovascular ill health amongst all weights.  Inflammation has the potential to form a conjunction with so many risk factors/health issues. Joining with various aspects of the human experience like LSES.  It says here that having a loving input, in this case from a mother can stave off some negative effect. So I'm guessing repairing ones esteem and anti stress measures may also be of help.

As usual there's the old arrow of causality to consider, e.g. asthma. I've wondered in the past about a possible link between inflammation in the lungs and the triggering of weight gain. Could be that the growth involved in fattening leaves those with a latent susceptibility at greater risk of developing it. Growth can tend to sensitize your system as a whole. And also vice versa. Incidences of asthma can seem to provoke some susceptibilities toward fattening.

Either way, finding ways to reduce inflammation could be of obvious benefit.The only caution being if that is a reflection of some kind of damage limitation.

The usual coda applies;

Schulze also said that individuals who fall into the obese category should still try to lose weight, because there could still be problems down the road.

Lol. Oh and note this part of the title of that link "...study says its possible to be overweight but not at-risk"!  Relative no absolute.

That's where slim = opposite to fat gets you.