Why Obesity Is NOT America’s #1 Health Concern

Obesity gets a lot of the attention when it comes to health concerns in this country.

And of course, it does, it is an affliction that can be seen with the naked eye and nearly 2/3 of Americans are either overweight or obese.

And despite the truth that obesity is a huge risk factor for developing all sorts of diseases (coronary heart disease, Alzheimer's and dementia, diabetes, and cancer), it is NOT the #1 health concern in this country.

That award goes to a more sinister and less obvious disease, Metabolic Syndrome, once known as Syndrome X (a terrible name).

Metabolic syndrome is a crisis of abundance.

In a world with simple sugars are sprinkled neatly in nearly every mainstream packaged food and whole foods are being genetically modified and stripped of their nourishing qualities - we must ask ourselves this simple question:

Can our ancient genes cope with our modern diet?

Let's try to unpack how this crisis can be subverted and even reversed for those suffering from it.

What Defines Metabolic Syndrome?

Metabolic Syndrome is defined as meeting 3 of these 5 criteria:

1. High Blood Pressure (>130/85)

2. High Triglycerides (>150mg/dl)

3. Low HDL Cholesterol (<40mg/dl (m), <50mg/dl (w))

4. Central Adiposity (Waist circumference >40 (m), >35 (w))

5. Elevated fasting glucose (>110mg/dl)

How many Americans tick at least one of these boxes? 90%.

If you take a closer look above, you'll see that being obese only ticks off one of the following boxes (central adiposity). Although it is very likely that other boxes will be ticked off in correlation with obesity, it's not guaranteed.

This leads us to the trickiest aspect of this disease, not everyone who is obese is metabolically unhealthy, and not everyone who is metabolically unhealthy is obese.

It turns out, that "skinny fat" people are at the most risk for metabolic diseases because of their decreased capacity to store fat safely (this can be related to individual genetics as to why one would more likely be skinny fat rather than obese).

If you are not storing fat safely in the form of brown fat (the healthier fat), but are instead storing it where you absolutely want to avoid it, around your belly, then you're at an increased risk for metabolic disease.

Fat stored around the belly is known as visceral fat and it is the real culprit. So maybe you can see how someone who is "skinny fat" can be storing a lot of unhealthy fat around their belly and not be obese - but still be as, if not more, unhealthy.

How Can We Become Metabolically Healthier?

We should all desire and work towards having a healthy metabolism.

Metabolism is the process by which we take nutrients (found in our food) and break them down for use in the body.

When we are metabolically healthy, those nutrients are transported to where they need to go in the body. For those that are metabolically unhealthy, those nutrients go to the wrong places. And it is insulin that decides where the energy in our body is stored.

Here's an easy way to view this, using a bathtub analogy.

With the faucet running (calories coming in), if the drain is shut or clogged (you're sedentary), there is nowhere for the water to go other than to overflow the tub.

This energy (fat) spillover, goes to undesirable places, such as in the liver (leading to non-alcoholic fatter liver disease), the muscles (insulin resistance), the blood (increase in blood triglyceride levels), and the abdomen (visceral fat).

This energy spillover alone can account for the cause of at least 3 of the 5 criteria for Metabolic Syndrome!

A Solution

#1. Open the drain.

#2. Take control of the faucet.

Living a sedentary lifestyle accentuates the lethal qualities of all the aforementioned.

Walk more, exercise more, increase your heart rate, and challenge your muscles.

30-60 minutes of exercise 2-6x per week is a great place to be, but not progressing and pushing the intensity is not. Getting a 30-minute walk in the morning is awesome, but not moving at all other hours doesn't cut it. You need to move more, and more often.

Also, take stock of your nutrition habits, the quality of your food, and your food-based decisions. Is there room for improvement? Getting a comprehensive blood panel done often (bi-annually) is the foundation of learning at what risk you're currently at.

Do not wait for something to go wrong. Do not be reactionary to your health ailments.

Be proactive, be preventative, and make evidence-informed (risk-adjusted) decisions rather than just evidence-based ones (not yet individualized to your needs and risks).

What area of your health needs the most attention today?