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Body Image or Health? what is the more important for you?

ferd_ttp5
ferd_ttp5 Posts: 246 Member
Seems most of people nowadays tend to look on your body image to determine if your healthy or na! Yah if your skinny then your healthy and if your fat/obese then your unhealthy prone to some certain diseases. So on that peoples nowaday equation what's best to be a fat that healthy inside? or a skinny unhealthy inside? Healthy out or in?
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Replies

  • jenilla1
    jenilla1 Posts: 11,118 Member
    I like to be slim, fit and healthy, personally. Both are important to me, with health being the highest priority. But luckily, I don't have to choose from either of the scenarios you offered. I don't have to sacrifice my ideal body type in order to get good health, since my body always looks best when it's fit and healthy.

    When I carry excess weight, I'm not as healthy. My cholesterol and blood pressure shoot way up, regardless of exercise or the types of foods I'm eating. Some people can carry quite a bit of excess weight and still be in good health, but that's not the case for me. Too much body fat does bad things to my health. So the scenario of me being fat and healthy isn't realistic.

    I do think that one can be skinny and unhealthy - especially if you are severely underweight or suffering from an illness, but it's also totally realistic for someone to be skinny and healthy. I'm on the slim side and my last check-up showed that I'm in pretty awesome shape health-wise.

    When you ask "healthy out or in" I say they go together. Because when you are healthy on the inside, it generally shows on the outside. For example, an underweight, sickly person ISN'T healthy on the outside. They don't look healthy if they are emaciated, sick or weak. Same thing with someone who carries a bit of extra weight. If they really ARE healthy inside, it will show on the outside - they will be energetic, fully mobile, strong and capable. If they're sluggish, tired, in pain and unable to function normally, they AREN'T healthy inside.

    Long story short - it's best to be healthy inside and out. B)
  • Packerjohn
    Packerjohn Posts: 4,855 Member
    The thing that people always bring up when they're trying to push a HAES agenda is that normal weight people can be unhealthy too.

    The thing is though that while being of normal weight doesn't make one completely immune to all health problems, being overweight or obese does mean that there are problems. Suggesting otherwise is like saying that smoking and alcoholism are fine because you haven't got lung cancer and cirrhosis yet.

    Being fit means being normal weight which means having that nice body and body image.

    So much this. Health first and obesity or underweight does not promote health.
  • cozytimes
    cozytimes Posts: 111 Member
    health first. physical appearance will not always determine what's going on inside! although, i did discusss this topic with my teacher.

    his opinion was that weight does determine health. if you're overweight/obese, you're unhealthy and that's just the plain truth.
    he also talked about excessive fat, BMI, and how if you're eating healthy foods but you're still overweight/obese, you're not healthy.
  • lemurcat12
    lemurcat12 Posts: 30,886 Member
    It's better to be healthy, but being overweight and especially obese are risk factors that increase your likelihood of developing a health issue, so it's not one or the other.

    Just not being overweight isn't the only thing important for health -- I think fitness/exercise/activity is extremely important, as well as some other things (sleep, stress management, not overdoing caffeine -- I don't drink but would add not overdoing alcohol and of course not smoking, smoking), eating a reasonably nutritious diet, cultivating human relationships and various other lifestyle thing, etc.

    I think it's funny but human that people can be really obsessive about the importance of some factor due to health, but ignore others. I'm definitely in this category, and also will admit that while I do care about being healthy and think I do overall focus on it, I'm hypocritical (I am bad about both sleep and caffeine) and care about other things (what kind of exercise is fun, how I look) as a motivating factor more directly than health. (Health to me is hard to make a motivator unless you have a scare or have people around you with a scare -- for many of us increasingly common as we get older -- since it is so easy to take for granted or put off worrying about, especially when younger.)
  • crazyycatlady1
    crazyycatlady1 Posts: 292 Member
    For me personally, overweight=unhealthy, because I now know that my weight is directly tied to my glucose number (high weight/high glucose number). Now that I'm thin I have normal glucose numbers and all my other blood work is great (total cholesterol is 143 etc), and all my other health markers are solidly in the normal range.

    Other people can be overweight and healthy, but that's not my reality so it's no longer an option for me.
  • TheRambler
    TheRambler Posts: 387 Member
    all health here. I have my annual physical next Friday and the only numbers I'm excited for are: blood pressure, blood sugar, cholesterol and other blood levels. If the focus is health, the weight will follow suit (or so in my experience).
  • VeryKatie
    VeryKatie Posts: 5,928 Member
    jenilla1 wrote: »
    I like to be slim, fit and healthy, personally. Both are important to me, with health being the highest priority. But luckily, I don't have to choose from either of the scenarios you offered. I don't have to sacrifice my ideal body type in order to get good health, since my body always looks best when it's fit and healthy.

    When I carry excess weight, I'm not as healthy. My cholesterol and blood pressure shoot way up, regardless of exercise or the types of foods I'm eating. Some people can carry quite a bit of excess weight and still be in good health, but that's not the case for me. Too much body fat does bad things to my health. So the scenario of me being fat and healthy isn't realistic.

    I do think that one can be skinny and unhealthy - especially if you are severely underweight or suffering from an illness, but it's also totally realistic for someone to be skinny and healthy. I'm on the slim side and my last check-up showed that I'm in pretty awesome shape health-wise.

    When you ask "healthy out or in" I say they go together. Because when you are healthy on the inside, it generally shows on the outside. For example, an underweight, sickly person ISN'T healthy on the outside. They don't look healthy if they are emaciated, sick or weak. Same thing with someone who carries a bit of extra weight. If they really ARE healthy inside, it will show on the outside - they will be energetic, fully mobile, strong and capable. If they're sluggish, tired, in pain and unable to function normally, they AREN'T healthy inside.

    Long story short - it's best to be healthy inside and out. B)

    Agreed
  • lemurcat12
    lemurcat12 Posts: 30,886 Member
    Being fat is unhealthy. Being anorexic thin is unhealthy. But you can aso be normal weight and be unhealthy.

    Biggest Loser trainer Bob Harper has one of the fittest bodies anywhere and yet he got a heart attack in February and had to quit eating his paleo diet which caused his high cholesterol. He said he's switched to a Mediterranean diet which is lower in red meat and saturated fats.

    So, diet is crucial in determining your health as verified by blood tests. But there's nothing good about being fat, even if your labs are good. Personally, it's not a question of either/or. I choose to have a great body that's in great health.

    I find it interesting that there's been no discussion about this on the boards (that I've seen at least), especially with the large group of paleo/low carb/keto followers here.

    Did he have high cholesterol before the heart attack? I don't really follow Bob Harper or BL, so don't know. I also wonder if it increased. I know some people's do with those diets, and some don't.

    My understanding is that whether sat fat affects your cholesterol (a somewhat separate issue from whether it is a health risk if consumed in excess, as it could well be even if it does not) is genetically determined and only true for a minority of people. It's true for my father (he controlled his cholesterol by reducing sat fat), but doesn't seem true for me -- my cholesterol numbers have always been good and improved from the already good numbers when I lost weight even though I increased meat and therefore sat fat somewhat when doing so. But then my sat fat never was terribly high and I eat lots of fiber, vegetables, fish (probably a good omega 3-6 ratio), all of which tend to be helpful.

    It's also quite possible to follow a paleo diet without sat fat being high, depending on what your protein/fat sources are, and probably the same with keto, although I haven't done it (and I think paleo is unscientific and cuts out healthy whole foods, so not promoting it one bit).
  • lemurcat12
    lemurcat12 Posts: 30,886 Member
    TheRambler wrote: »
    all health here. I have my annual physical next Friday and the only numbers I'm excited for are: blood pressure, blood sugar, cholesterol and other blood levels. If the focus is health, the weight will follow suit (or so in my experience).

    This is not true for me.

    First of all, even when I was fat my tests (including the things you mention) were fine. So focusing on those things would not have been useful. My weight itself was the risk factor.

    Second, I ate a pretty healthy diet (but for calories) when gaining weight, and yet I got fat, so the weight did not follow suit.

    Thus, IMO, it's reasonable to be specifically concerned with weight when trying to focus on health. Not only concerned with weight, but concerned with it, yes.
  • bizgirl26
    bizgirl26 Posts: 1,808 Member
    Health first ... I know a lot of thin people that have health problems ( high blood pressure, high cholesterol etc.. ) .Even my dad died at age 51 and he was thin . Of course I want to look good but what does that all mean without your health ?