Plus-sized pop star Lizzo confirmed her position on being labeled as “body positive” as one of modern music’s most-respected names by bagging three Grammy Awards, including best pop solo performance for Truth Hurts, in January.
She said that at this point, it would be lazy of her just “to just say I’m body positive”, and that the next step was to normalise bigger bodies.
“I would like to be body-normative,” she continued. “I want to normalise my body. And not just be like, ‘Ooh, look at this cool movement. Being fat is body positive’.
Celebrity model Tyra Banks has incorporated plus size models in her popular reality show America’s Next Top Model. She said her new mission is to cast a group of aspiring plus-sized models for the competition. “Plus-size is really the average American woman and that woman is healthy,” Banks has said. Some doctors have supported this notion arguing that lifestyle and genetics are what determine health, not a woman’s dress size. Other experts, however, cringe at the thought of anyone associating being overweight with being healthy.
The Case For Healthy Fat
For decades doctors have used BMI (body mass index) to determine whether a patient is at a healthy weight. Anyone scoring above or even below the normal range of 18.5-25 is considered potentially unhealthy. New research, however, disagrees with that notion.
“The correlation between weight and health is greatly exaggerated,” says Paul Campos, author of The Obesity Myth: Why America’s Obsession with Weight Is Hazardous to Your Health. Studies have found that people with BMIs in the overweight range have lower incidence of lung cancer, chronic bronchitis, anemia and osteoporosis than those in BMI ranges below them. A long-term study published in the journal Obesity found that people with BMI scores in the overweight range have a lower risk of mortality than any other BMI group.
In other words, junk in the trunk can be beneficial. Hip, butt and thigh fat is chemically stable fat which traps…
…harmful compounds released during digestion. Being overweight may not be ideal, but research says it’s less stressful on the body than yo-yo dieting which can cause a slow metabolism, long-term weight increases and even cardiac stress.
Here are 4 tips on how to live healthy at ANY size:
1. Accept your size. Love and appreciate the body you have. As long as your body is not hindering you from living a full life (limited movement, heart disease, high blood pressure, etc), self-acceptance empowers you to move on and make positive changes.
2. Trust yourself. We all have internal systems designed to keep us healthy — and at a healthy weight. Support your body in naturally finding its appropriate weight by honoring its signals of hunger, fullness, and appetite. When your body starts giving you clues like swollen areas, parts of your body start functioning different, then you probably need to change your lifestyle.
3. Adopt healthy lifestyle habits. This is key. Don’t just accept your size when you’re not healthy. Develop and nurture healthy relationships in and outside your family. Fulfilling your social, emotional, and spiritual needs restores food to its rightful place as a source of nourishment and pleasure.
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- Find the joy in moving your body and becoming more physically vital in your everyday life.
- Eat when you’re hungry, stop when you’re full, and seek out pleasurable and satisfying foods.
- Tailor your tastes so that you enjoy more nutritious foods, staying mindful that there is plenty of room for less nutritious choices in the context of an overall healthy diet and lifestyle.
4. Embrace size diversity. Us humans come in a variety of sizes and shapes. Open to the beauty found across the spectrum and support others in recognizing their unique attractiveness.
The Case Against Healthy Fat
Opponents to fat acceptance say there’s no way dieting is worse than being overweight. Some research supporting this idea shows that extra weight can increase your risk of developing breast cancer. In addition, overweight women with normal cholesterol and normal blood pressure levels can still go on to develop heart disease at increased rates, says Barbara Berkeley, M.D., director of weight-management services at the Lake Health System in Cleveland. “In other words, being overweight may look ‘healthy’ but probably isn’t once we follow someone over a period of years,” she said. Berkeley believes the studies showing overweight people have lower risks of mortality are results of a thrown curve. Severely underweight people, she argues, are much less healthy than slightly overweight people so the studies seem to point to extra weight being healthy.
While thigh fat may be healthy, abdominal fat and visceral fat is not. Visceral fat, or fat that coats your organs like hot candle wax, releases inflammatory fatty acids that have been linked to cancer and coronary diseases. Because of these and other risks involved with carrying extra fat, Berkeley believes any endorsement of being overweight is a dangerous idea. Your heart is only the size of a fist, she said. Berkeley said asking a muscle as small as the heart to power an overweight body is “like putting a little engine in an SUV.”
Beyond BMI
Regardless of their different opinions, the two sides agree on one thing and that is that fitness is essential and the type of body fat is more important than the number of pounds. BMI measurement is a useful tool for large scale statistics, but when it comes to evaluating each person individually BMI measurements cannot take into account a number of things that determines a person’s health and fitness. In the end, what is most important is that everyone, regardless of weight or BMI range, strives for a well-balanced diet and a physically active lifestyle.