Is Fat Putting Your Health at Risk?

Carrying excess weight has become so common in recent years, especially in the United States, that people have become somewhat complacent about it. No wonder, because according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), fully two thirds of the U.S. population is overweight or obese. That's clearly a majority. But if you need to lose weight, your health could be at risk, according to a major new study by the American Cancer Society published a few days ago in The Archives of Internal Medicine.

I'm always looking for ways to help motivate others and myself to be fit and stay fit. Some ways are "positive" motivators, like being inspired by things you would do if you were fitter (for me surfing is one example), while others are "negative" motivators, like the thought that you might lose years off your life if you don't get fit soon. The American Cancer Study is a powerful negative motivator.

The crux of the study is that size of your belly or waist has been linked to a meaningful increase in the risk of dying from cancer, heart disease and respiratory disease. What's really important as a revelation in this study is that this risk holds true regardless of whether or not the person's body mass index falls into the normal weight, overweight or obese category. In other words, even for people who are not at all overweight, if their waist size is large (and the belly is usually the first thing to gain weight), they are at the same risk of dying from these conditions as people who are overweight or obese (and happen to have the same waist size).

The study found that men who's waist sizes were 47 inches or larger, and women who's waists were 42 inches or larger, were at about two times the risk of dying compared with people with small waists (35 inches for men, 30 inches for women). The issue, as stated by the study's author, Eric Jacobs, is that waist size is "strongly correlated to fat tissue in the abdomen, which is the most dangerous kind of fat issue."

If the thought of increasing your risk of dying of cancer, heart disease, or respiratory disease by up to two times isn't a motivator to lose your gut, belly fat, or whatever you want to call your excess abdominal fat and gain that six-pack you've always wanted, then maybe you are more motivated by positive motivators. If you're motivated by scary, negative motivators, read this article again! The implications are scary indeed.