Opened in 2011 by founder Francis Wisniewski, the Chicago-based gym caters to the obese. Not just the marginally overweight — the mom returning after a pregnancy and the dad carrying some sympathy weight — but rather, the people who need transformations. They didn’t simply miss an exit somewhere; they’re speeding in the wrong direction. Downsize Fitness members need help relearning how to live healthy, and the gym’s owners say the best way to get there is through community.

“Anyone who goes through a transformation like that,” says Downsize CEO Kishan Shah, “it is so vast that it changes your entire outlook and makes you want to help others.”

Shah was heavy once — 400 lbs. to be exact. He’s since cut that number in half and has spent the last nine-and-a-half years devoting his life to fitness and personal health. He has visited 100 different gyms in 30 countries strictly to enrich Downsize’s vision — only after he had lost the weight, he says; before, it was impossible to ride a plane without buying two seats.

Since November of 2011, the gym’s members have lost a total of 5,500 lbs., Shah says. “They’re literally living before and after pictures.” One man used to receive insulin injections before losing 100 lbs. Now he runs marathons. Similar success stories abound.

But the stories are anything if record-breaking. Shah emphasizes that new members aren’t joining in the hopes of climbing mountains or competing in the Ironman. Sure, they may get there eventually, but first they’re focusing on fitting into roller coaster seats, or walking a block without getting winded. The ultra-tough gymnastic-weightlifting hybrid, CrossFit, is based on functional movement performed at high intensity. Downsize Fitness says, “Let’s just focus on the movement part for now.”

“What we do at Downsize is focus on functional fitness – broadly defined as anything that helps you live and meet a healthy life,” Shah told the Daily Beast. “The primary consideration people have when joining is not because they’re interested in looking better. It’s generally that they want to be able to get up off the floor, or keep up with their kids, or live to see their grandchildren.”

Downsize Fitness Only Lets Overweight People Join: New Members Must Have 50 Lbs. To Lose And BMI Over 30

While the story is unfolding, this approach seems perfectly in order. After all, we’ve been educated to understand that it’s wrong to question the life-choices of the generously proportioned. Hollywood is surely to be commended for giving body fascism a biff. But then the credits roll. They begin with a dedication. “For Jim”.

That’s James Gandolfini, the actor renowned for playing one of the most memorable characters in screen history, Tony Soprano. In Enough Said, he plays Albert. After shooting another film, he went on holiday to Italy. In Rome on 19 June he died, at the age of 51.

The cause of death was a heart attack. And the cause of that seems to have been his weight, at least in part. Gandolfini didn’t need a fat suit to play Albert. He’s believed to have tipped the scales at around 20 stone at the time of his death.

“He was a walking time bomb,” according to Dr Chauncey Crandall, the head of heart transplants at the Palm Beach Cardiovascular Clinic. Crandall suggests that Gandolfini’s size may have given him high levels of blood pressure, triglycerides and cholesterol, and perhaps also sleep apnoea, a disorder that increases cardiac risk. “Unfortunately, this was a sad case that had clear warning signs.”

So if Enough Said is “for Jim”, what is it likely to do for those still alive who share his proclivity? This isn’t the only film calculated to make men feel better about being fat. The likes of Up, Cyrus and Paul Blart: Mall Cop have done their bit for the bigger boys. It’s not just Hollywood either: Mexico’s Paraiso, for example, currently offers us a happy, portly couple whose marriage breaks down as soon as they attempt to diet. However, it’s far from clear that big-screen indulgence of obesity does the obese much of a favour.

Obesity causes not just heart disease, but diabetes, osteoarthritis and cancer as well. It can damage the liver, kidneys and brain. It even causes further obesity, and this effect can’t be reversed through dieting. It’s as clear a cause of harm as cigarettes, which have been almost purged from cinema, except as a grim reminder of the folly of our forbears.

Oddly, though fatness is smiled upon, undue thinness is decried on film. Keira Knightley (who’s believed to weigh around seven stone) has been continuously attacked on this count. After all, people could try to emulate a screen idol; that might lead to anorexia, a condition that can prove fatal. Yet obesity kills many more than anorexia.

While actors like Knightley arouse disdain, those who fatten up for a part are applauded. Renée Zellweger was congratulated for putting on 30 pounds (just over two stone), twice, for the two Bridget Jones films. After Robert De Niro put on 60 pounds for Raging Bull, critics acclaimed his “transformative” achievement.

Tom Hanks gained 30 pounds for A League of Their Own. Last week he said that conforming to such requirements “may have had something to do” with his developing type 2 diabetes, “because you eat so much bad food and you don’t get any exercise when you’re heavy”.

Still, when producers suggested that Jennifer Lawrence might actually lose a bit of weight, they found her less co-operative. “If anybody even tries to whisper the word ‘diet’, I’m like, ‘You can go fuck yourself’,” she’s just told an admiring world. Yet a slim frame would hardly have been out of place in a film entitled The Hunger Games.

Understandably, Gandolfini’s untimely death provoked a tidal wave of grief. It’s a pity it didn’t also prompt a little bit more reflection.

Is Enough Said in films about the dangers of obesity? | Film | theguardian.com

New figures yesterday showed almost 1,000 children were sent to hospital in the last three years over fears about their weight.

Shocking statistics show a fifth of four-year-olds are now overweight or obese – a problem estimated to cost the NHS £5billion a year for all ages. According to figures obtained using the Freedom of Information Act, 932 children under the age of 15 were admitted to hospital with a ­primary diagnosis of obesity.

They included 283 primary school-age children and 101 under the age of five.

Portsmouth Hospitals NHS Trust said it had admitted the 10-month-old for obesity in the past year, while Mid Staffs NHS Trust said a one-year-old girl was sent to it by a worried doctor.

At Central Manchester University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, there were 172 children diagnosed with obesity, while Great Ormond Street Hospital in London admitted 97 ­children.

Dr Mars Skae, of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, said: “I am increasingly being referred children as young as four years of age in our specialist obesity clinics.

Overweight 10-month baby caught up in obesity epidemic sparks crisis warning | Health | News | Daily Express