Fat and Testosterone are Like Mixing Oil and Water by Jose Antonio, Ph.D., CSCS, FACSM, FNSCA, FISSN

According to the NAAFA website, "Founded in 1969, the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance (NAAFA) is a non-profit civil rights organization dedicated to ending size discrimination in all of its forms. NAAFA's goal is to help build a society in which people of every size are accepted with dignity and equality in all aspects of life. NAAFA will pursue this goal through advocacy, public education, and support."

Did you get that? A civil rights organization? You gotta be f'in kidding me. Anyhow, I'll not go into a lecture on why NAAFA masquerading around as a civil rights organization is like Fidel Castrol saying he's a free-market capitalist. There are so many reasons to not be fat besides the fact that it irks the sh#$ outta me when I'm flying across the country, seated next to someone with the girth of an overfed Russian maid.

For instance, we know that testosterone is present in plasma (blood) as free or unbound testosterone, albumin-bound and sex hormone-binding globulin [SHBG]-bound. In lean men, about 2 percent of testosterone is unbound, 44 percent is bound to SHBG and 50 percent is bound to albumin and other proteins. The free T and the albumin-bound fraction are the biologically-active testosterone fractions.

Being a fat man, especially if you carry it underneath your belt buckle, is associated with lower total testosterone [TT], free testosterone [FT] and sex hormone-binding globulin [SHBG], and a greater decline in TT and FT with increasing age, compared with lean men. Also, obese men have reduced sperm concentration and total sperm count, compared to lean men.3 In fact, 40 percent of obese non-diabetic and 50 percent of obese diabetic men above the age of 45 years have subnormal FT concentrations.

Thus, being a fat little househusband is probably the condition most frequently associated with abnormally low FT concentration in males.4 So if you're all about 'Fat Acceptance,' then by golly, you are also all about having low testosterone levels. And that, my friend, is just not a good thing. Wake up and get your fat butt on the treadmill.

. Mah PM, Wittert GA. Obesity and testicular function. Mol Cell Endocrinol, 316:180-6.