Bust That Myth!

There’s been plenty of press lately about the fact that too much is being made of obesity and sedentary life styles. Can’t we all get along? Maybe, just maybe, obesity isn’t the devil incarnate. Maybe, just maybe, fitness and fatness aren’t oxymorons.

I talk to clients all the time who explain it all away with, “well, I used to play football and this is the weight I played at”. Well, 6′, 280# might work well on the football field, but 20 years later you aren’t needing to knock anyone down and a substantial amount of that 280# isn’t muscle. Life insurance underwriters aren’t out of line calling that a standard rate risk.

Now comes a study that busts the myth that you can be fit and fat and not suffer consequences from your cellulitranslated (a word I just invented that in Greek means “in denial”) life.

The meat of the study cuts right to the chase. Fitness and fatness is better than no fitness at all, but not better than fitness in the absence of fatness.

Bottom line. Yes we can all get along, but don’t blame life insurance underwriters for a lack of sensitivity to your weight issues when they have the facts on their side. They do offer fair rates for the risk they are assessing and they occasionally cut some slack if a person is working hard at changing the life style that got them where they are.