Last week, I posted a notice about this story to twitter and facebook. V Magazine had had the audacity to use plus sized models (size 12, not very plus to the average size 14 American woman) in a sexy fashion story! Whoa! Stop the presses! What are they doing?

Well, most people responded favorably. Not surprisingly, women were thrilled.

Today, I was at the gym and, when I looked up from the treadmill, one of the entertainment shows featured a string of commentators who had negative reactions to the magazine layout.

Why?

They said… get this… they were “concerned the images might encourage women to be unhealthy.”

Oh, brother! Look at this picture above. Which model looks unhealthy to you?

As if being thin means you’re healthy! We all know that’s not true. In fact, how many models and actresses have we seen die as they tried to control their weight due to industry’s hard line on the subject?

When I lived in New York, I had quite a few friends who were trying the modeling biz. I can’t tell you how many times I had to pick them up out of a faint and force feed them a coke or yogurt to get them conscious again. The terrible ways people stay thin in the fashion and film worlds would fill a very large encyclopedia.

I’m not saying that excess weight is healthy. Depending on our own unique body, there is a point when we start to build up risk factors based on excess girth, especially if it’s located around the middle.

I’ve known extremely thin people who were very unhealthy and heavier folks who exhibit not one detrimental effect of their excess weight. (These are usually people that fall in the overweight category, not the obese category, however.)

After 30 years of studying weight, health and fitness, I’ve developed this view on thin/fat/health:

There’s a wide range of healthy, much wider than insurance charts and those ridiculous BMI tables can fathom. Most people have a 30-50 lb. range where they experience good health. It’s a choice where to be in that range.

What I consider healthy:

a. Fasting blood sugar in 70-100 range.

b. Blood pressure below 140/90.

c. Resting heart rate of 80 or less.

d. Cholesterol readings of less than 130 for LDL and more than 60 for HDL.

e. Energy to do all the things you want to do.

f. Not being impeded by your weight – I use this standard: if you’re in trouble, can you get out of it? Maybe it’s because I lived in New York so long but, if you can’t run, fight or defend yourself, you’re in trouble. So, that might be the ability to run a block or two and having the strength to fight an attacker. Did you know that most victims of rape and assault are overweight? Their attackers believed they were easier to overpower.

g. The ability to maintain your weight without extreme dieting, exercise or other efforts like drugs. The dieting game will deplete your health real fast. Ever lose 30 pounds quickly? How soon afterwards were you flat on your back, sick?

h. Little or no reliance on medications to effect the above numbers.

I’d love to see a comparison of the factors above between super thin models and the ones in the V Magazine article!

As always, health is the target. Health is wealth. Body weight isn’t the most reliable indicator of health.

In fact, the narrow definition of acceptable size and beauty is one of the reasons so many of us diet, regain and re-diet so many times. Since every diet leaves us fatter, chasing the illusive, rigid idea of beauty in our culture actually destroys health and beauty.