Your weight is not your destiny – Part II

Over the course of this second part, I will address some of the most common myths about weight, health issues and economic impact. For additional details, I’m going to provide some studies where you can educate yourself further.    

Myth 1: Obesity and overweight are not global problems
Among the biggest health issues in an increasing number of countries, are weight-related illnesses and disabilities. An alarming 1.9 - 2.1 billion people (WHO (1) speaks of the first one, some studies claim the latter) of the global population are considered either overweight or obese. As pointed out by vast amounts of different studies, overweight is strongly correlated to a high number of different health implications. As Smith (2) puts it in an article published 2016:

"Obesity is a chronic disease that is associated with increased morbidity and mortality, including cancer, cardiovascular disease, disability, diabetes mellitus, hypertension, osteoarthritis, and stroke. […] Overweight and obesity are the fifth leading cause of death in the world, accounting for nearly 3.4 million deaths annually”

Pretending, there are no weight-related issues at all, is nothing, any sane person should do anymore. Of course, I hope, most of you already know this, but as I explained in the first part of this series, there are, sadly, quite a few people who believe otherwise.
But overweight is not only a problem for the health of the individual. The costs for treatment of illnesses related to an unhealthy amount of weight, are increasing as well. Although it’s not so easy to determine the exact amount for each country, there is some data available for the US. According to Hammond and Levine (2008) (3) there are three economic factors one must consider:

1. A conservative estimation of the medical costs of obesity were somewhere about $147 billion in 2008. It’s quite likely for those numbers to be much higher by now.   

 2. The costs of less productivity – the paper splits it into four different categories (absenteeism, presenteeism, disability, premature mortality) – which are estimated to be about $66 billion each year.    

3. The additional costs of obesity regarding to transportation and human capital accumulation are quite difficult to nail down exactly, so additional research is needed. As far as I looked through the available material on this topic, I was not able to find specific numbers, so if someone has more details to share, I’m always glad to see them.   

This was, of course, only a very short review about the problems we, as society, are facing regarding weight-related issues. However, I hope, I was able to make my case quite clear: Overweight has definitely a big impact on health as well as economics – for both the individual and the society. Therefore, it’s necessary to address some more false beliefs.         

(Source)

Myth 2: Health at every size
As I wrote in the first part, this statement is quite cynical coming from people, who are working tirelessly to promote “fat-acceptance”. The problem is, besides the medical ignorance, that the people, who are telling you this, are not really believing, what they are saying. They don’t mean “every size”, but “my size”. That’s a very important difference to keep in mind. This is also the reason, why they are attacking those people, who are trying to change their lifestyle and working to lose weight. If they really meant “health at every size”, they would just be able to accept the decision of other people and go on with their lives. But, sadly, that’s rarely the case.
So, it’s time to address this claim from a more rational point of view. For those, who were about to criticize my sole focus on overweight and obesity – please, be patient, I’ll cover underweight as well. The reason, why I’m so focused on the other extreme is, that, based on the available statistics, this is the one, more people are suffering from. And, in my perception at least, it’s a bit easier to deal with. But, you are welcome to correct me there.
As mentioned above, there are a lot of different serious medical conditions, which can be caused by overweight.
Please keep in mind, that I’m speaking here of “can be caused”. Every serious scientific study can only outline, more or less significant correlations between different variables. It’s important to make this clear, because I’ve read articles written by activists, who are suggesting, that scientists are claiming, that overweight always equals diseases and early deaths. Those activists mistake correlation with causation and I don’t want any confusion about my points here. Everything I’m citing or writing about should always be read with a “this can happen but doesn’t have to” mindset.
To make this point even clearer, it’s helpful to look at the raw numbers of some of the diseases.

Diabetes
Graham et al. (1995) (4) provided a long-term study over the course of 14 years with more than 100,000 women to research weight-related risks. According to the results, as soon as the BMI was at 24 or higher, the risk of contracting diabetes increased. Women, who gained between 5-8kg weight in comparison to women with normal weight, had an increased risk by 90%. For those, who gained between 8-11kg, this risk increased to 270%. Women, who lost more than 5kg, were only half as likely to suffer diabetes.
A meta-study by Guh et al. (2009) (5) stated a six times increased risk for obese men in comparison to the ones with normal weight. The risk for obese women increased by an alarming 12 times.

Cardiovascular diseases
This is another medical issue, which can occur. Reis et al. (2013) (6) used 25-year-long-term-study to present some interesting findings. None of the 3,300 participants was obese at the beginning of the study during the 80s. At the end 40% were. The results are quite intriguing: For each year, a participant lived obese, his risk for heart problems increased by 2-4%. Out of the people who were obese for several years during the study, 27% got heart diseases. In addition to this, the already mentioned meta-study by Guh et al. (2009) stated a 29% increased risk of cardiovascular diseases for overweight and a 72% increased risk for obese men. Women are an even more endangered species. The overweight one had an increased risk of 82% and the obese women an incredibly 269%.  

(Source)

Cancer
One of the most malicious illnesses a human can suffer from. And obesity is responsible for about half a million new cancer patients each year (Arnold et al., 2014) (7). Once again, we can look at the analysis done by Guh (2009) and are able to see numbers like the following:
Women with a BMI between 25-30 have an increased risk of uterus cancer (53%), bowel (45%) and kidney (82%); those with a BMI of above 30, a risk of 222%, 66% and 164% accordingly.
The life of overweight men is not much better (although they miss a uterus, of course). For the ones with a BMI between 25-30, there is and increased risk of bowel cancer (51%), kidney (40%) and pancreas (28%). Those with a BMI of above 30, a risk of 95%, 82% and 129% accordingly.
 

Phew. That’s some heavy shit going on here. Of course, this is far away from being complete. There are much more medical issues you should be concerned about, but I don’t want to bore you too much with statistics and numbers. It’s more important for me, to raise awareness about the problems related to overweight.
Just thinking about these numbers, should raise the responsibility to take much more care of your body and I really hope, I can help at least some people in doing so.
Looking at the article I just wrote, I feel kind of sad for the affected people. I can imagine, it’s not easy and I think, everybody deserves better. Not all hope is lost – there is a way out. It might not be easy or pleasant, but step by step, everybody can do it.
In the next part, I will write about proper nutrition, myths about food and eating and how to get the ability of knowing, of how much your body actually needs.    

Feel always free to discuss my ideas and share your own thoughts about the things I’m writing about. Nobody is omniscient and if we all walk away a little bit smarter than before, we’ll have achieved a lot.   

Thanks for reading!
Ego   



References
(1) http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs311/en/

(2) Smith, Breuhl Kristy; Smith, Michael Seth; 2016; MD; CAQ-SM; PharmD, doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pop.2015.10.001

(3) Hammond, Ross A; Levine, Ruth; Diabetes Metabolic Syndrome and Obesity: Targets and Therapy; 2010; 3; 285-295; doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.2147%2FDMSOTT.S7384

(4) Graham A. Colditz, MBBS, DrPH; Walter C. Willett, MD; Andrea Rotnitzky, PhD; JoAnn E. Manson, MD; Ann Intern Med. 1995;122(7):481-486; doi: 10.7326/0003-4819-122-7-199504010-00001

(5) Guh, D.P., Zhang, W., Bansback, N., Amarsi, Z., Birmingham, C.L. & Anis, A.H. (2009) The incidence of co-morbidities related to obesity and overweight: a systematic review and meta-analysis. BMC Public Health. 9:88.

(6) Jared P. Reis, PhD; Catherine M. Loria, PhD; Cora E. Lewis, MD, MSPH; et al; Association Between Duration of Overall and Abdominal Obesity Beginning in Young Adulthood and Coronary Artery Calcification in Middle Age; 2013; https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/1713590?=

(7) Arnold, M., Pandeya, N., Byrnes, G., Renehan, A.G., Stevens, G.A., Ezzati, M., Ferlay, J., Miranda, J., Romieu, I., Dikshit, R., Forman, D. & Soerjomataram, I. (2014) Global burden of cancer attributable to high body-mass index in 2012: a population-based study. The Lancet Oncology, Early Online Publication, 26 November 2014