Fat and Can Touch Your Toes? Does This Mean You’re Healthy?

By Lorra Garrick | Last updated 03/25

Fat acceptance influencers show how “healthy” they are by posting their flexibility.

This means nothing. Stiff hamstrings don’t cause heart disease.

Can we stop it already? That is, fat acceptance influencers posting images and videos of themselves demonstrating higher-than-average flexibility in their legs and hips in an attempt to “prove” that they’re healthy despite being at least 100 pounds overweight.

Look, as a lifelong fitness enthusiast and former personal trainer, I’m ALL for flexibility training.

Flexibility is very important and should be part of an overall fitness regimen.

In fact, I recognize that some cases of chronic low back pain can actually be caused by tight hip flexors, and the painful heel condition of plantar fasciitis can be caused by tight calf muscles.

At the same time, nobody ever got sick or type 2 diabetes because they couldn’t do the splits, touch their toes or kick their leg up high.

Yes, people who are sickly and out of shape typically have stiff bodies.

But lack of flexibility, in and of itself, does NOT cause chronic illness such as coronary artery disease, heart failure, high blood pressure, cancer or gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), nor does it cause acute conditions such as stroke and miscarriage (both for which obesity is a significant risk factor).

You can be totally out of shape with clogged arteries, insulin resistance, undiagnosed sleep apnea and poor cardiovascular fitness and STILL be able to stand in place and pull your foot behind your head.

Flexibility of a Fat Body Doesn’t Mean It’s Healthy

A fat activist influencer responds to a comment. Toe-touching being synonymous with fitness perhaps originated from school gym teachers challenging students to touch their toes?

Flexibility alone does not indicate a healthy body, especially in obese people.

While maintaining good flexibility has benefits such as reducing or eliminating low back pain, and reducing injury risk in exercise and sport, a co-occurring obesity still brings with it numerous health risks.

Being able to sit on the floor and widen straightened legs to a 160 degree angle will NOT water down the harmful effects of obesity.

Research has shown that excess body fat, particularly the visceral fat around internal organs, is linked to several chronic conditions such as heart disease, type 2 diabetes and hypertension (Neeland et al., 2012).

In fact, even people with impressive flexibility are still at risk for these health problems if they have a lot of excess weight.

A study by Ross et al. (2008) found that body fat, especially abdominal, is a significant predictor of metabolic diseases, regardless of one’s flexibility.

Visceral fat is vicious. It doesn’t care that you could lift your foot to your face while standing!

High flexibility also does not necessarily correlate with other important fitness components such as muscle strength, joint durability or cardiovascular efficiency.

So if a fat influencer wants to convince viewers that they’re healthy and/or fit, they need to post a video of themselves actually performing a metric of heart fitness and joint integrity — such as running up two flights of stairs and then immediately at the top quickly counting to 20 out loud without heaving for breath.

While good flexibility is certainly an important aspect of physical health, it shouldn’t be viewed in isolation.

Relying solely on flexibility as an indicator of health or fitness is misleading and can leave underlying health risks unnoticed.

Again, I place high value on flexibility – but not to yield good heart health, good cholesterol numbers, low blood pressure and a healthy liver and kidneys.

Stiff hips, a stiff low back and tight leg muscles will increase the risk of gait problems with advancing age, plus potentially lead to or contribute to chronic low back pain.

Poor flexibility in and of itself won’t directly cause illness such as blood clots, a weak heart or type 2 diabetes.

But it can contribute to physical limitations as one gets older, and, again, increase the risk of injury.

Limited flexibility (and this includes in the upper body) can impair joint mobility and muscle function, leading to poor posture and movement dysfunction (Behm & Chaouachi, 2011).

This, in turn, could contribute to chronic pain or musculoskeletal disorders, which can impair the ability to exercise.

And we all know (or SHOULD know) that a sedentary lifestyle is a gigantic risk factor for premature mortality and chronic disease (Pate et al., 1995).

What is the verdict for fat & flexible?

Stop showing off your limber hips and legs in the name of thinking this means you’re healthy.
If impressive range of motion is part of some dancing, that’s different. Keep dancing; it’s a form of aerobic exercise.

But being able to kick high, touch your toes while your legs are straight and do a back bend have absolutely no relevance to longevity, cardiovascular health, cardiorespiratory function, or liver and kidney health.

Why doesn’t this “fat liberationist” post a video of herself dashing up a hill for 30 seconds? How about some squat jumps, jumping jacks and burpees?

It’s great that you’re flexible, but you’re fooling only yourself if you think that good flexibility is a measure of health or is predictive of future health.

If you’ve read somewhere that there’s a correlation between the ability to sit with legs straight out and touch one’s toes – and mortality — this is because people who struggle to do this are less likely to engage in healthy lifestyle choices to begin with.

I wouldn’t expect a sedentary person who smokes and has a junk food diet to be able to touch their toes with ease or swing a leg high.

So though lack of flexibility can be a fast, simple marker predictive of future health outcomes, that’s only because those who can’t perform a simple flexibility test typically don’t have a healthy lifestyle to begin with!

Moves such as this are not considered metrics for fitness, health, longevity or reduction in disease risk. On the flipside, the inability to do this is not indicative of poor health, poor fitness or higher risk of disease.