Thin People May be Fat on the Inside

Thin People May be Fat on the Inside

Every now and then a story comes along in the media that really supports my belief about the importance of physical activity for overall health. Research from London has used very sophistical imaging techniques to look at where people store body fat.

They report that people who use food restriction (ie. dieting) alone to lose weight may be at a lower weight than before but they appear to still have too much fat, particularly too much fat around their internal organs.

We know that fat around the internal organs is particularly bad and increases the chances of developing chronic diseases such as type 2 diabetes and heart disease.

This work suggests that you can use diet to lose weight but unless you also increase physical activity, you may be thin on the outside and fat on the inside. You may not be as healthy as you think.

This issue of fitness and fatness is vigorously debated in the scientific literature. Some people, such as my friend Dr. Steve Blair, at the University of South Carolina, argues that

many people who are overweight and physically active may be healthier than others who are at a lower body weight but sedentary.

The point here is that weight is important but so is diet and physical activity. Your genes help determine your body weight. You may be someone who is genetically prone to be thin or someone who is genetically prone to be overweight. If you are genetically prone to be overweight or obese, it may be very hard for you to ever be thin. What you can do, however, is to be at the healthiest weight you can be given your genetics. I believe that for most of us, our genes permit us to be at a healthy weight. This may require more work for some people than others.

The bottom line is that the scale is important but it is not sufficient. If you are at a healthy weight, make sure you are also eating a good diet and getting regular physical activity. Most people who are overweight or obese would improve their health by losing some weight. To maximize the improvement in health, pay attention not just to your weight but also to your lifestyle. Achieving a lower weight is good but achieving a lower weight and an active lifestyle is even better. This shows that just looking at someone’s outside is not enough to know if they are really healthy on the inside.