Obesity...Should We Be Talking About It?

I recently posed a question on my Facebook page that I'll share here...

Someone said that this War On Obesity might actually be doing more harm than good because we're STILL focusing on APPEARANCE instead of BEHAVIOR. We should embrace good behaviors instead.
Sometimes I wonder if in 20 years we're going to have the opposite problem because so many kids (especially girls) were told "fat is bad!!!" their whole life.

As someone that suffered from an eating disorder for roughly 5 years I get a bit uncomfortable when weight is being discussed...especially regarding children. I especially hate that some schools are taking BMI and sending notes home to the parents that basically say "Your kid is fat."

Weight is not the problem. Lifestyle is the problem. Being skinny doesn't automatically mean healthy. At my lowest weight (115lbs...that's teeny for a 5'6" woman with a larger frame) I was malnourished and unhealthy. However, before I hit that low weight, when I was in the 120's, people told me how GOOD I looked and how they wanted to "lose weight and get healthy" like I had.
My mother isn't a fat person but her cholesterol doesn't reflect that. I've known overweight people with perfect cholesterol numbers.

Even the idea that "we focus on skinny models as perfection and that's unhealthy" is bad too. Some people are naturally stick-thin. It doesn't happen often, but I've known several people that eat like horses but remain super thin (my brother is one...).

We should focus on behavior. Are you exercising 3-5 times a week? 10-30 minutes a day? Are you drinking water instead of soda or juice? Do you limit processed foods?

Your body will reflect these choices in a good way. You may never be model-thin...you may even always be on the larger end of healthy. But that's okay! Your body has a set weight at which it functions best. That may change as you age (hormones do that)

I'm just afraid that in 20 years we're going have won the "war on obesity" and be fighting a "war on eating disorders" instead...

What do you think? Leave your thoughts in the comments below!