I guess this is sort of a Part Deux to my first community post (shameless self plug alert).

As I just saw posted to Shapely Prose, Yahoo! news has published an article indicating that (oh horror of horrors!) fat people actually can be healthy.

And yet they still can't stay away from the stereotypical and even-a-little-hateful anguage. Take the opening two sentences:

You can look great in a swimsuit and still be a heart attack waiting to happen. And you can also be overweight and otherwise healthy.

Problem? The implication that if you're overweight there's no way you look good in a swimsuit. I'll follow with another link I stole borrowed from Shapely Prose here.

I was pleased to see they mentioned the flawed nature of BMI:

The limits of that method were highlighted a few years ago when it was reported that the system would put nearly half of NBA players in the overweight category.

(Which is why I refuse to buy a Wii Fit, but that's another post for another day.)

The LA Times doesn't do much better with the same story. Instead of, I don't know, encouraging people to live a healthy lifestyle instead of resorting to psychotic measures to get their weight down (crazy, I know), they choose to focus on location and resort to even worse abusive language by saying "You can be normal weight and be just as bad off as old tubby next door."

If you can't sift through the condescendingly "surprised" tone of the articles to find the actual science, I've ganked borrowed the links once again from SP. Here and here.

To sum up? This thing called "visceral fat" - fat that is wrapped around internal organs buried deep inside your body - is more dangerous to your health than this "icky" kind you see sticking off a plus-size person's thighs or ass. And the real kicker, thin people are equally at risk. Appearing thin doesn't mean there's no visceral fat, in fact, you are just as likely to have high levels of it as a fat person. It's about lifestyle and exercise. Visceral fat is the first thing burned if you exercise regularly - meaning a sumo wrestler could actually have less than a thin, sedentary person. Or, to be less hyperbolic, my size-16 running ass is probably better off in the long run than someone who appears thin but never exercises. This visceral fat is related to the correlation between waist size and risk, but it's a correlation, which, as we're all taught in research 101, does not imply causality.

So here's the deal: eat a healthy diet* and exercise regularly and you'll be fine. I know it's going to be tough for a lot of people to swallow - fat haters are quickly losing the one argument where they can pretend to care about you! But it's common sense, and it's what so many have been saying for years.

* - I don't mean "diet." Get your fruits and veggies. Get your protein, whether it's from meat or soy. But don't deprive yourself. If your friends take you to Junior's, order the fucking cheesecake and don't worry about it.

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