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Friday, May 25, 2007

Shorter Reuters: Just because its futile doesn't mean you shouldn't still try to look like a model
Posted by Jill | 9:28 PM
Hot on the heels of Gina Kolata's new book Rethinking Thin: The New Science of Weight Loss — and the Myths and Realities of Dieting comes a new study indicating that even when overweight people exercise, they get less benefit than thin people:

Overweight and obese people get less out of resistance training than leaner people do, researchers said on Friday in a study that suggests the overweight may have to try harder to get results.

But it does not mean they should give up, said the researchers, who noted the differences were small.

“People who are overweight and obese experience numerous health benefits from exercise training programs even in the absence of significant amounts of weight loss or improvements in cardiopulmonary physical fitness,” Linda Pescatello of the University of Connecticut and colleagues wrote in their report, published in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research.

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They tested 687 adults aged 18 to 39, measuring their body fat and using magnetic resonance imaging to look at their muscles and fat.

The volunteers did 12 weeks of 45- to 60-minute workouts of their upper arms, working the biceps and triceps.

Everyone gained strength and muscle. But the overweight and obese volunteers gained 4 percent to 17 percent less than those of normal weight.

Differences could be genetic, the researchers said.

“People with overweight and obesity have alterations in skeletal muscle structure and function compared to those who are normal weight that could also contribute to variability in the exercise response,” they wrote.


In other words, MAYBE WE ARE JUST FUCKING BUILT DIFFERENTLY!!!

When you look at what overweight people are faced with every day -- job discrimination, total strangers telling us what we should and shouldn't eat, hot and cold running diets, more time spent exercising than many of our thin friends, the relentless parade of salads and measuring and having every meal out be a minefield -- it's hard to imagine that anyone would think that someone would CHOOSE to be overweight. The idea that perhaps some of us can't, or shouldn't try to constantly fight our own bodies never seems to occur to the medical profession, when it's so much easier to put people on diets that don't work and exercise programs that produce limited results.

I'm not saying people should eat junk food and sit on their asses all the time. But at some point, this society is going to have to accept that it's possible to be healthy without being a sixe six and without working out for an hour and a half every day. And that some of us just might be built to be healthy with a larger body mass than others.

I keep thinking back to my own gynecologist, who lost forty pounds on a starvation diet and after twenty years of never once giving me shit about my weight, decided I should go on this diet too. I wonder if she's keeping the weight off without making the lives of everyone around her miserable. And I also wonder if I'll be able to find a new doctor who can accept that if my lipids are OK and my blood pressure is OK, I just might be healthy without a crash diet.

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