Big and healthy are not necessarily oxymorons

Say what? These days are some of the hardest for people that are big. Seen by about everyone as unhealthy and lazy, big people are said to have no will or power on themselves. It’s all about being muscular, lean and ripped. This is why the publicities we see at night when we watch TV are based on Calvin Klein Ken-looking models and on anorexic fashion models. Being fat is just not fashionable anymore (unless you are Oprah and use weight loss as a way to promote your show, that is). What if being fat does not necessarily mean that you are unhealthy? What if this was just a new societal vision? One of the best ways to understand humans is to study the relationship they have with food. It’s even better if you do it evolutionarily, because you can see the evolution of this relationship. We often hear that the problems of our society are that people eat too much, move too little and are lazy. Supposedly, this is all new.

However, this is just a popular belief (thanks to the media and diet companies). This is so far from the truth that I actually consider it an insult to the intelligence of the population. In science, we try to avoid beliefs and stick with what we know and can prove. Let’s see if we can do that with this topic.

The idea that feasting is making us fat has no evolutionary basis. We are told that people love food too much today. Is this really just a modern thing? I mean, what’s not to like of food ? It keeps us alive, tastes good, makes us feel good, is relaxing, and it’s a bonding experience (hence why you bring your date to a nice restaurant). It’s not like our ancestors did not love food. Our ancestors spent most of their day hunting and gathering foods. They enjoyed a nice feast in the evening à la Asterix.

Actually, our relationship with food has always been a good one. It has to be this way because every species is like this. Remember, there is a reason you make your dog learn tricks by giving him food as a reward. Here are a few examples of our good relationship with food :

Masaìs mate depending on the amount of domesticated animals the man has. The more he owns, the better. The point is that it means security to the given bride. It means she will never die because of lack of food. It means that the man has the proper networking to ensure her survival too. Up to a certain point, we can notice the same behavior today. Lots of women go for the guy who has lots of money.

Another example can actually be seen from an evolutionarily perspective. If you look at the evolution of art (painting), you can definitely see that women were not skinny (unless the man was poor). If your woman was curvy (due to a nice layer of fat), it meant that you were a great guy. Indeed, you could provide enough food to ensure that your wife and children were healthy. Even the world’s most beautiful woman of all time, Cleopatra, is not skinny.

Now that we know that feasting has always been part of human’s nature (I would argue that it’s part of the animal’s nature), what are we left with? What has changed to the point that fat people are now unhealthy?

We are told that it is the lack of exercise that is now making us unhealthy. Sure, someone who is very inactive will be unhealthy. As we have seen yesterday [Link here], exercise helps us optimize our hormonal system. But, do you really need to do a lot of physical activity to reach those benefits? What is the very minimum?

All I can say is that I doubt fat kings and queens were getting much physical activity. Perhaps it was closer to the average person in our society than we think. I doubt any people actually exercised to the point that they were completely depleted in our history (unless they were slaves). This is definitely not going to explain why being fat is bad today.

Will you stop already and get to the point?

Well, the point is that there is only one thing that has changed that we are sure of. Our diet is definitely not the same as it was before. Processed foods represent the bulk of our food intake. This is a major change because we went from a very nutritious diet to a very unhealthy one. In the process of doing so, our relationship with food did not change.

This explains why you can be big and healthy, or skinny and unhealthy. Processed foods disrupt the metabolism of the eater. Thus, if you are big and eating a diet based on evolutionary guidelines [Link here], you can be healthy. This can be proved with metabolism scans (and it has been shown that it’s possible). In the same fashion, if you are skinny and eating lots of bad ”foods”, you can be very unhealthy.

It’s important to understand that I define a big person as someone who is overweight, but not obese. Obesity is definitely not healthy.

What should we make of this?

One thing is for sure, this should not prevent us from trying to achieve our weight loss goals. It should not justify the fact that we are unhappy about our weight. However, it should change our vision on the subject. You don’t need to have 6-12% body fat to be healthy. It’s important to eat a diet that is healthy, because it makes us physically healthy. More importantly, it makes us psychologically healthy. And, when it comes down to it, I would much rather be healthy than have a low percentage of body fat.