Being skinny isn’t the same as being healthy

Our society has the very wrong idea that being skinny is the same as being healthy, but that’s wrong! There are plenty people that tend to be very thin even though they eat a lot. Why does that happen? Simple: they have a very fast metabolism, which their genes determine pretty much 80%. Of course there’s a difference between being skinny and being fit.

In this post we are going to discuss a little bit about people who are genetically very thin and all the healthy problems they are more predisposed to have.

First of all, why do thin people need to worry about their health?

Well, most people think that, because of their lack of body fat, they won’t have similar problems to obese people, but that conception is very wrong. When you have a fast metabolism, in which you don’t gain much weight even though you eat a lot… you tend to eat a lot of garbage… and there’s where the danger lives! These kind of food are incredible unhealthy and they tend to increase cholesterol (LDL, triglycerides and total), decrease HDL (the “good cholesterol”), and increase your blood pressure… which means you might have dyslipidemia and hypertension.

The dyslipidemia in thin people tend to be must worse then the ones in obese, that’s why it is recommended to do blood exams routinely (if you have someone in your family who has died or had an heart attack/stroke at young ages, you should visit your doctor regularly since young ages as well to prevent it).

Another problem is the malnutrition you are susceptible, once you eat a lot of junk food, you don’t ingest all the vitamins and minerals your body requests to be alive… making you more predisposed to not only chronic diseases (dyslipidemia, atherosclerosis, high blood pressure), but infections as well.

Also, these diseases are trigged when you have a sedentary lifestyle… Well, when society says your body type is ideal and you don’t even have to make any effort to have it… why would you workout? Healthy problems seems only to affect older people… BUT that the problem: it doesn’t only affect you when your older… it shows itself at young ages, making it possible for you to die at age 40 if you don’t take of your body!!

As you can see, the healthy problems in thin people are must worse than those in obese because it is taken for granted. So, even though you don’t need to eat properly and exercise to “look good” (aesthetic speaking), you need it to feel good, live longer and avoid diseases.

Obesity is not only a self-image problem

It is well known that one of the biggest problems of been “fat” is all the negativity surrounding people self-esteem due to all the social media pressure saying your body type is inadequate. The problem is that, nowadays, obesity has become an epidemic problem… which means this is a public health issue, and not only a social one.

Besides all that media influence, there is a fundamental basis to discourage people to engage an unhealthy lifestyle thanks to all the publicity of easy ingesting and ready-to-go food. In our century, it has become incredible easy to ingest hipercaloric foods which means that there is a lot of food offering, and most of it has tons of empty calories and almost none nourishing ingredients.

This means that people are not eating properly, even though they tend to eat a lot during the day. This will result in weigh gain and minerals/vitamins deficiency. So, even though one person may be obese, (s)he my suffer from some level of malnutrition.

Why is this happening? Well, the junkie-food-industry is each day more present in our lives through propagandas, inducing people to buy their products everyday, especially kids. And to make it even worse, their prices may be lower then the ones on the “healthy food department” in the supermarkets, making it even easier for people to buy it, especially those who can’t afford much.

This is leading the population to a road of chronic diseases, affecting younger people each day. Now there are lots of kids with “adult diseases”, including diabetes, high blood pressure, dyslipidemia, and atherosclerosis.

Why are these diseases being triggered earlier?

Well, we all have a baggage called DNA (our genetic influence) that we can’t change, but there are some diseases that required environment influence as well (especially those mentioned before). When we provide this sedentary and hipercaloric lifestyle, it triggers these genes and it is manifested as diseases, which do not have a cure, but a life long treatment to prevent all the complications, especially early deaths.

So, how can I prevent or chance it?

The genes are there, but you can prevent them from trigging if you engage a healthy lifestyle, which includes at least 150 min of cardio per week + resistance training + healthy food habits. You don’t need to live like an athlete; you just need to make right choices.

xox