When all else fails let’s try fat but fit

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Sue Dunlevyhttp://blogs.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/suedunlevy/index.php/dailytelegraph/comments/when_all_else_fails_lets_try_fat_but_fit/

Friday, August 15, 2008 at 02:50am

YES,

you can be fat and healthy! German researchers this week discovered a

new condition that could be a breakthrough in our war on fat: benign

obesity.

One in four of the 300 obese patients studied by these

Germans were found not to have an increased risk of heart attacks or

diabetes.

They are overweight but they are not unhealthy.

It might not be an adequate solution to the nation's obesity problem, but so far its the simplest on offer.

The implication that we should stop seeing fat as the enemy and

instead promote health at any size has growing support with some

researchers.

And it might be the only solution in a nation where 67 per cent of men and 52 per cent of women are already overweight or obese.

Solving the problem of our creeping waistlines should, theoretically, be simple: eat less and exercise more.

But getting us to change behaviour is proving impossible.

Scientists now tell us dieting makes us fat because it triggers a

famine response in our bodies, lowering metabolic rate - the rate at

which we burn energy.

The battle against obesity is about to be put front and centre on

the national stage after Health Minister Nicola Roxon announced this

week she was planning to give hundreds of millions of dollars in bonus

payments to states that cut their childhood obesity by 5 per cent over

the next decade.

But most of the policy solutions to obesity vying for space on our

political agenda are complex and rely on diet, even though the research

shows fitness - not fatness - is a more important predictor of whether

you will die of a heart attack.

Grocery manufacturers keen to avoid having new government rules

imposed on them are foisting a new labelling system on already confused

customers.

This new system spells out what proportion of your recommended daily

intake of energy and vitamins is in each serve of their food.

It sounds simple until you realise that harried mothers will have to

get out their calculators and perform quadratic equations to plan the

family menu if this system is to be taken seriously.

Then there is Roxon's idea of setting up vegetable gardens in

schools so kids can grow their own food and gain an interest in eating

fruit and vegetables.

I tried it myself last summer when I helped my kids grow lettuce and

strawberries and tomatoes in pots - and for the first time ever I had

my kids eating lettuce.

But it takes about 13 weeks for the vegetables to grow and the kids

developed a refined taste for the juicier homegrown strawberries than

the cardboard fruit in supermarkets.

Then there are the proposed bans on junk food advertising on

television, which I doubt will have much impact on people filling their

shopping trolleys with chips and chocolate.

Some even propose we replace our crockery sets with smaller bowls and plates so we eat smaller servings.

One doctors' group wants the government to subsidise weight loss programs.

We've got walking school buses and school canteen menus with

healthier offerings, but still the nation's kids are getting larger.

Sydney University dietician O'Dea says we're creating a moral

panic about obesity that could be doing more harm than good by

demonising the overweight and deterring them from seeking help - being

fat doesn't always mean you're unhealthy, O'Dea says.

Researchers at the Institute in Texas found that fitness, not

fatness, is a more important predictor of whether you will die of a

heart attack.

Instead of focusing on diet we should be focusing on fitness, she says.

But governments that try to get us off the couch and onto the

treadmill will be wasting their money if it is spent on a new mass

advertising campaign like the old Life. Be In It campaign.

The Medical Journal of Australian found last year that these public

health messages were absorbed by the public, but don't change our

behaviour.

A pioneering NSW health fund, Australian Health Management, has

found that the best way to get us to change our behaviour is to give us

a personal coach.

For every $1 it spent on paying for this coaching for its members, it saved $3 on medical and hospital bills.

In many cases this personal coaching wasn't aimed at making fund

members lose weight, but at stopping them putting on any more weight

and keeping them fit.

With one in six of the nation already obese and research showing

that diets don't work, perhaps the best a new national obesity program

can aim for is the promotion of benign obesity: how to stay healthy

when you're already fat.