Can You Be Fat & Healthy?

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The problem with all such trends is that they often trivialize themselves into fads, easy to latch onto and easier to drop. Perhaps the key to the fat-and-fit movement is that there is no one key. In our effort to get healthy and look great, we have created an environment so hostile to the idea of obesity that overweight people have become marginalized, giving up on their well-being and sometimes failing to show up even for such routine tests as Pap smears and mammograms for fear of being hectored about their weight by their doctors.

Better to accept the idea that weight control is a multifront battle, with exercise, diet, understanding physicians and patients willing to try new things all part of the campaign. "This fight is won by persistence," says Cheskin, "not extreme firepower." Longtime veterans of the weight- loss wars can certainly vouch for that. --Reported by Anna Macias Aguayo/Dallas, Melissa August/Washington, Amanda Bower/ New York, Paige Bowers/Atlanta, Dan Cray/ Los Angeles, Sarah Sturmon Dale/Minneapolis, Laura Locke/San Francisco