On The Health Benefits of Obesity

Few things in life are all good or all bad. However, our public discourse does not reflect balanced assessments. The primary media bias is the bias for simplicity. We can argue whether this bias reflects humanity's bias for simplicity or that it proves that people in the press are mostly simpletons. But for whatever reason, the media hold a bias for simplicity.

While this editor was unable to find any advantages to bulimia (we will try again in the future) he was able to find advantages to obesity. Exhibit A: A high BMI is associated with improved survival. "Weight-gaining interventional studies in dialysis patients are urgently needed to ascertain whether they can improve survival and quality of life."

http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/abstract/81/3/543

And if you're bothered by that pesky hypoxia, remember this: "We found that high-fat diet-fed (HFD) mice recovered from acute hypoxia 5 times faster than normal-diet-fed (ND) mice." Yeah baby. You go, fat mouse! Sis boom bah! Outsurvive the skinny mouse! Outsurvive the skinny mouse! Outsurvive the skinny mouse!

http://endo.endojournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/150/6/2660

This study is complex but has a few intriguing facets. "However, until we fully understand the physiology of uraemic fat, and especially the causes of the accelerated mortality in CKD, it is hard to exclude that adipose tissue may indeed also exert beneficial effects in patients with CKD."

http://ndt.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/23/10/3041

Finally, I offer my own non-clinical observation. Obese people develop amazing lower body strength. It is hard to replicate an exercise of carrying around extra pounds under the skin 24/7. Your fat makes your legs strong. If you are obese or formerly obese, test this hypothesis. Go down to the gym and hit the leg press or the squat bar. I bet you put the marathoner to shame. And you will retain that stregth even if you shed some tonnage. It is possible that the formerly obese will be shown to be healthier than the never obese. I hope so.