September 2008

FIT or FAT? What matters most?

Some women spend their lives trying to lose weight in order to look better. This has given rise to a myriad of popular but not particularly healthy weight loss programs designed to make people weigh less.

Along with this obsession with being slim/thin comes a view that slim people are healthy and fit while fat people are unhealthy and unfit.

Now, there is an association between obesity and disease, but the issue here may not be the extra weight, but the factors that contribute to it, such as a poor diet, stress and lack of exercise.

Scientists who have studied fatness and fitness for decades are concluding that low fitness levels are a bigger risk of disease than carrying extra body fat. So just as slim/thin people can be unfit, smoke and have high blood pressure, fat people can be fit. We can’t judge how healthy people are by looking at them.

What’s also interesting from research in this area is that muscular strength (from resistance or weight training) is just as important as cardio-vascular exercise. The stronger your muscles are, the less risk you have of developing high blood pressure. It’s not just muscles, bones and hearts that benefit from being active; exercise affects nearly every bodily system.

This doesn’t mean that a careless diet is cancelled out by exercise, but it implies that if women could shift their focus from being slim/thin to being healthy, we could make a lot of progress. For a start, many women could enjoy a much more vital life if they stopped having it be about weight loss. Rates of disease would probably plummet and self-esteem would soar. We could also give up being judgmental about the way people look: curvy women who eat smart, exercise and take care of themselves could celebrate their curves rather than feeling they’ve failed.

It starts with each one of us. The media emphasis on slimness isn’t going away any time soon, but whenever we take a stand and set an example, we give other women the space to do the same. It takes swimming against the tide, but so do many things that are important.

The Secret Pleasures of Menopause

If you thought it was all hot flushes and night sweats, listen up! American author Dr Christiane Northrup is due to release a book of that title next month. Dr Northrup trained in obstetrics and gynecology, but is mostly known as a holistic style of doctor who works with women. Previous books include The Wisdom of Menopause and Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdom.

Dr Northrup’s style will be too gushy for some, but a book that promises to have you discover ‘Sensual Secret Weapons’ at least takes a different tack than most writing on menopause.

The magistrate with muscles

Finally, some words of wisdom from NSW magistrate Pat O’Shane. Pat was Australia’s first Aboriginal magistrate, and while she’s been in the news this year for being on the other side of the court room bench, she’s a savvy, don’t-mess-with-me 66-year old.

She was quoted recently in The Age and Sydney Morning Herald’s Good Weekend magazine as being more interested in exercise than hair dye and face creams.

She said: “I prefer to put my faith in muscles. They are what make older women strong in body and mind and prevent you from disappearing.”

Sometimes the law may be an ass, but Pat seems to have it right.

Until next time, enjoy Spring!

Rhonda Anderson
Director

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