Health & Fitness
Thin Fat People: Why Being Skinny Doesn’t Protect Us From Diabetes and Death
Bad food choices and lack of exercise are creating poor health in both obese and normal weight adults and children in this country.
Last time I talked about the perils of diabetes on our young people with nearly 50% of all new cases of diabetes found in kids. However, there was one other shocking fact-13% of kids with normal weight were either pre-diabetic or diabetic. The children who had “normal” weight also had higher rates of diabetes and cardiac risk factors. In fact, 37% of “normal” weight kids had one or more cardiovascular risk factors such as high blood pressure or high cholesterol. 18% had elevated blood pressure, 13% had elevated blood sugar (pre-diabetes or diabetes), and 10% had elevated cholesterol.
So, you don’t have to be overweight to have these problems, in fact, while 60% of obese people in the US have pre-diabetes or diabetes, an amazing 40% of skinny people also fall into this category! What is causing this serious problem? The answer, I believe, is in the mistaken belief that all calories in food or drink are the same. What we are learning is that 1000 calories of Oreo cookies and 1,000 calories of broccoli are really not the same when it comes to our health and negative effects on our body. Unfortunately, the food industry has created combinations of sugar, fat, and salt in junk food that triggers biological addiction- “why you can’t eat just one”. No one binges on asparagus. The quality of food we eat is critically important, independent of the calories. The average American eats 29 pounds of French Fries, 23 pounds of pizza, 24 pounds of ice cream and consumes 53 gallons of soda, 24 pounds of artificial sweeteners, 2.7 pounds of salt and 90,700 mg of caffeine per year.
Unfortunately, only about 6% of doctors have any training in nutrition, and our health care system is really a “sick care” system for treatment of symptoms without looking at the cause. So, what can parents do? How about learning about nutrition and living a healthy lifestyle, including exercise. I suggest checking out a series of videos found on YouTube called “The Skinny On Obesity”. Also, we can work to be better role models for our children. Till next time,