Lately, I’ve been hearing and reading more and more “fat is beautiful, don’t worry about it” speeches on the internet. Groups are being organised under the slogan “I accept that I am fat”. In my opinion, those who accept it are wrong. They do not take into account the consequences for their lives. They don’t reckon with the fact that by the age of 45 or 50, being fat will make them ill. They don’t reckon that they will live the last 1-2 decades of their lives suffering from avoidable diseases, within the limits allowed by the disease. I will show you how.
Beauty is an aesthetic concept. It is subjective. It is a matter of taste. Therefore, for me, the question of whether a fat person is beautiful is completely irrelevant. It can be beautiful, because most fat people can find their match. So the fact is: some people like it. As a counterpoint, there are also quite a lot of people who are thin and can’t find a partner. It’s not about aesthetic beauty.
Fatness – a breeding ground for disease
It is a well-established medical fact that obesity, even moderate obesity, is a “breeding ground” for disease. Just a few extra kilos will set off a process of destruction in your body and if you are persistently obese, will make you ill by the age of 50 at the latest. For sure!
Fatness is a direct consequence of disease. Examples include high blood pressure, diabetes, heart problems, heart attacks, strokes, hormonal imbalances, joint pain, arthritis, arthrosis. And of course, constant back and lower back pain, followed by lumbar sprains and herniated discs. The list goes on. There are thousands of diseases and complaints.
When you are young, these are not too much of a problem…but they will make the last 1-2 decades of your life very difficult. When your muscles are so weak that you can’t push your huge body out of bed… When your belly fat is compressing your lungs so tightly that they can’t expand and you’re gasping for air like a beached fish.
By “accepting” fatness, you also determine your quality of life in old age.
How does obesity destroy you?
You live well, you have everything in supermarkets, restaurants, cake shops. You eat out at least three times a day, stop off for an ice cream, a cake or a Coke on the way home, and snack a bit at the cinema or in front of the TV. You stay far away from physical activity. Over the years, you’ve built up a solid layer of fat from all the goodies you’ve packed in through your mouth. Your body saves the excess for a “rainy day”, like grandma’s jelly.
Smooths your heart
In just a few years you’ll be 10-15kg overweight. But you were not “designed” for x+15kg. Maintaining that extra fat mass is an extra task for your body. Your lungs have to take in more oxygen than planned, your heart has to supply blood to a bigger body, etc. You’re sitting in your armchair, but your heart and lungs are working your chest as hard as if you were on a running race.
You know that if you pull a truck trailer with a passenger car, you’re going to wreck your car pretty quickly. Then why do you think you’re not killing your heart with it?
Optimal would be to add a second heart to the extra weight – but that’s not possible, is it? So your only heart is trying to adapt with what it has. It raises your heart rate and constricts your blood vessels, which results in more pressure. HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE IS YOUR HEART’S NATURAL RESPONSE TO YOUR BIGGER BODY!
Your temples are throbbing, you’re sweating, you can’t stand the physical training and you’re visiting the doctor. You’re given an army of antihypertensive drugs. All they care about is restricting your heart from beating fast and raising your blood pressure. And that’s what I just wrote: it’s the only way the heart can keep your bloated body supplied with blood and oxygen.
Serious trap… the heart should be raising the pressure, but the drugs won’t let it. So then you have a constantly restricted heart. It can’t raise the pressure when it needs to, even though it should if you’re working.
You think “I’m fine now, I’m taking my medication, my blood pressure is normal”… true, but you always feel weak, you can’t cope with the physical strain and you feel dizzy from time to time… “I’ve done everything!” you keep saying…
But this complacency will soon be compounded by your new complaints.
Obesity makes you diabetic
A routine lab test will pick up that you have high blood sugar. You’re surprised, even though if you’ve been obese for a few years you should have expected it.
The link between so-called type II or adult-onset diabetes and obesity is also a medically proven fact. Nowadays it can appear as early as forty years of age.
The reason is that to ‘store’ all the excess calories you have taken in, your pancreas has to work much harder than it was ‘designed’ to. It therefore becomes prematurely exhausted, unable to produce enough insulin. In addition, the substances released from your fat make your body insensitive to insulin.
Diabetes is one of the most insidious diseases there is. It doesn’t hurt, it causes no symptoms – it “just” destroys your organs.
It slowly but surely destroys your arteries. Slag builds up on the walls of blood vessels all over your body! They make your arteries stiffer and narrower. And your organs are finding it harder and harder to get enough blood.
If the blood vessels in your brain are slightly narrowed, you’re doomed to a slow decline. If it’s more severe, you’ll have a stroke and become paralysed. If your heart is more affected, a heart attack will kill you. You’re no better off if it’s worst on your legs, as your fingers rot alive and your feet are amputated in slices.
Just to give you some light at the end of the tunnel: even if you inherited the diabetes gene, you may not be diabetic! Because you can prevent it by living a healthy lifestyle and maintaining a healthy weight! This does not apply in the case of obesity.
You already have high blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes, a stroke or a heart attack. But it’s not over yet!
Destroying your joints
The function of your joints is to allow you to move. They are held together by the elastic materials of ligaments and joint capsules, but your muscles provide the stability.
When your muscles are strong enough, they hold your weight and keep the joint surfaces apart. If your muscles can no longer support your heavy weight, then your joints will come together with every movement, the cartilage will slowly wear down and break down and it can’t regenerate.
The more pain you have, the less you move, the weaker your muscles get, which makes your pain worse…. it’s called a vicious circle. It’s very difficult to get out of it.
But why can’t your muscles take it?
Because you have excess weight to carry. If you’re 15kg overweight, it’s like carrying a bag around day and night. Think of a running race. Who will be the winner between two runners of equal ability? The one who is carrying a 15 kg lead belt or the one who is not? Which do you think has a better chance of winning? I’m pretty sure it’s not the one carrying the belt.
The extra weight wears on your joints with every movement. The weightlifter just lifts the weight over his head for a moment… and drops it! If you are overweight, you can never put it down. It’s a terrible burden on your body.
As long as you’re young and healthy, your muscles can handle the weight. But as you get older, and the aforementioned ailments set in, you get weaker and weaker.
The end result is that you spend your last decades under the “house arrest” of disease, essentially imprisoned in your home. Eventually, there comes a time when you can’t push yourself out of bed.
It falls to your child to nurse you, wash you, clean you, feed you. He has to give up his job to take care of you. This way he will have no income and financially he and his family will be crippled.
Only because you thought fat was beautiful and didn’t do anything about it at the time. Do you still think fat is beautiful?
Losing excess weight is hard as hell!
The previous common medical belief was that weight was an indicator. It indicates the balance of energy intake and expenditure. That is
- if your weight is increasing, you are eating more than you are using
- if your weight decreases, you use more than you put into your mouth.
- if your weight doesn’t change… you’re giving away just as much as your body needs.
Under this belief, weight loss would be extremely simple. If you put less energy into your body through eating than you lose through exercise and it is needed to keep your body functioning, called basal metabolism. To exercise more and reduce the calories you eat, you “just” need willpower. You have to get up from your armchair and make a change. You need a change that you can follow for years without suffering. A two-week self-indulgent diet campaign is worthless. And there is no pill, shake or anything else that will take 10 kilos off your excess weight in a week sitting in your armchair watching TV! Such drugs are fairy tales, but you’ve outgrown them.
With lifestyle changes – if you’re lucky – you’ll see results after a few months.
What if a lifestyle change doesn’t give the expected results?
Today, it is increasingly recognised that obesity is the result of a highly complex process. Internal hormonal factors, and the effects of external inputs on adipose tissue and metabolism, contribute to obesity. Plastic packaging introduces estrogen hormone-like substances into drinks and food. Chemicals used in industrial food production accumulate in food and have adverse effects. They interfere with fat metabolism.
For those who do not benefit from the “exercise more and eat less” approach, a thorough investigation is needed. Lifestyle, exercise, timing, quantity and content of diet should be analysed. The health of the hormonal system should be examined. Find out what may be causing abnormal fat metabolism in the body. Consult a specialist, because this fatness makes a healthy life impossible in the long term!
Why is it good not to be overweight?
Because you’ll feel good about yourself. You’ll be able to cope with the physical strain. You won’t need to see a doctor. You won’t have to pay for medication.
But more importantly:
- You won’t have a heart attack or stroke at 50.
- You won’t spend your life’s hard-earned money trying to get back your wasted health.
- You won’t live a crippled, helpless life with no income – because the stroke won’t let you work and earn, but your expenses will increase.
- You won’t get diabetes and your toes won’t rot off alive. And you won’t have your legs amputated.
- Your stomach, liver, kidneys and bone marrow won’t be wiped out by drugs.
- You can take care of your children and grandchildren.
- Family dinners are not about your illnesses and fear of death, but about experiences and life.
For me, the real beauty is health. You can see from the above that being fat is not healthy at all.
What do you think about the question in the title now?