Nothing is worse than that feeling of embarrassment due to our own ignorance or lack of understanding. But that’s how you might feel when you learn the greater truth about why your friend, coworker or family member might be struggling with excess weight. It’s time to bust the fat stigma.
It’s not lack of will-power.
It’s not laziness.
It’s not gluttony.
Watch this emotional TED presentation by renowned Surgeon and Nutritional Expert, Dr. Peter Attia, which debunks one of the most unfortunate stigmas to plague modern society, and questions accepted scientific beliefs about obesity.
Dr. Attia is very humble in the way he presents his opinion to show respect to his colleagues. But anybody paying attention to what’s happening in society and in clinical practice, where even supposedly healthy eating patterns are leading to obesity and diabetes, knows this is more than just a possibility, it’s a likelihood. Diet leads to insulin resistance, for which the body’s normal coping response is increased fat storage.
As it turns out, being fat could be more normal than being skinny. Normal weight people (the “high metabolism” folks) eating the typical diet concentrated in sugar and carbohydrates are possibly at even greater risk for hyperglycemia, fatty liver and diabetes. Could genetics (or epi-genetics) causing the inability to store excess glucose as fat, be the reason we see type 2 diabetics becoming “type 1”?
These are observations that shake the foundation of the obesity stereotype. You can feel the sincerity and emotion of Dr. Attia’s apology.
I wonder… how many of us are ready to offer the same apology to those we’ve judged based on wrong assumptions?