“The overfat condition is defined as excess body fat sufficient to impair health. The problem exists in most overweight and obese individuals and can also occur in those who are normal-weight and non-obese, often due to excess abdominal fat. Despite previous indications that the prevalence overweight and obesity is leveling, these conditions are currently at their highest levels in US history” (Maffetone & Laursen, 2017).
Undoubtedly, many Americans are looking to repair the damage done (to their body compositions) over the Thanksgiving Holiday. The word “diet” is likely being spoken with some distain. “Diet”, however, is not a verb—we are not dieting. We eat a particular diet (e.g., “the Mediterranean diet”). Our diet is eucaloric, hypercaloric, or hypocaloric (meaning that we are eating calories sufficient to maintain weight, gain weight, or lose weight, respectively). The content of those calories is of lesser importance than the quantity of those calories (albeit still of some importance—especially for health and performance).
I had long been of the understanding that roughly two-thirds of Americans are overfat or obese. My son recently looked it up and corrected me that it is closer to three-quarters (75%). Maffetone and Laursen (2017) proposes that the percentage of Americans that are overfat is more like “91% for adults and 69% for children.” (These data are pre-Covid which might suggest that they are even higher in 2022.) The researchers define overfat as “excess body fat associated with at least one additional risk factor of impaired cardiometabolic or physical health.” As such, one may not argue that these are numbers tabulated from body mass index (BMI; body weight in kilograms divided by the height in meters-squared). This suggests that even individuals who are non-obese or of normal weight can have excess abdominal fat.
It would seem clear that the American diet and the obsession with “dieting” is having a negative impact on the health of the American people. As we are amid the holiday season and approaching the start of a new year when Americans resolve to “lose weight” and “get fit”, let’s consider how we got to the point of being overfat, under-muscled, and dangerously unhealthy. Let’s reconsider how we typically approach “getting back in shape” and change our habits and create new habits with longevity and health in mind. Let’s make permanent rather than temporary changes. Let’s consider this not as a personal crisis (as a cosmetic issue). Rather let us address this as a societal issue—as an issue of public health.
Be your best today; be better tomorrow.
Carpe momento!!
Maffetone, P.B. and Laursen, P.B. (2017). The prevalence of overfat adults and children in the US. Frontiers in Public Health, 5:290. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2017.00290