The-F-Word.org

I was never a runner. Even at my thinnest when I wore a slim size 4, I couldn’t run. I’d try, huffing and puffing my way down my block or on the treadmill in the gym, and all I could think about was… “When can I stop… breathe… Has it been one mile yet… breathe, breathe… Only three minutes to go!… breathe, gasp!..”

I always thought of dedicated, hard-core runners as some sort of alien-like species, far removed from normal, non-masochistic folk like me. Which is why I am so surprised to find a Health at Every Size-inspired article in Runner’s World magazine.

In Understanding BMI, Runner’s World writer Marlene Cimons examines the highly-debated standard of BMI as an index for health. She begins:

Runners, of course, have always been concerned with their weight. At the same time, the fact is that many runners–despite consistent training over many years–will never resemble those skinny elite athletes who line up at the front in the world’s most competitive races. So what kind of impact should these new numbers have on us? And how much should we care?

Cimons goes on to quote lots of industry experts that bears repeating.

“The BMI guidelines should be used as just that–guidelines,” says Glenn Gaesser, Ph.D., associate professor of exercise physiology at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. “If you are above the recommended BMI, you need to ask yourself: Is this genetics, or is this lifestyle? People can assess in a matter of seconds if they’re active enough or eat too much. I think it’s ridiculous to focus totally on weight and weight loss.”

Steven Blair, Ed.D., of the Cooper Institute for Aerobics Research in Dallas, agrees. “Fitness, not fatness, is the more important issue,” he says. He bases his conclusions on years of research conducted at the Cooper Institute, studying the relationship of cardiorespiratory fitness to mortality in men grouped by BMI.

That work has shown similar death rates among men of all BMI levels who were moderately or very fit. But the death rates were significantly higher among men with low fitness levels, regardless of their BMI. (Women were not included in this study due to a limited sample size, Blair says, but “we would expect to see similar results.”)

“Fitness was a more powerful predictor of mortality than BMI,” says Blair. “In fact, we found that men with low fitness levels who had a BMI less than 27 were at greater risk for death than very fit men with a BMI greater than 30.”

“There’s no question that it’s far better to be fit and still fat, than thin and unfit,” says Gaesser, author of the book Big Fat Lies: The Truth about Your Weight and Your Health (Ballantine Books, 1998). “I think regular runners who are committed to a healthier lifestyle–and who have BMIs higher than the guidelines recommend–should just say to themselves: ‘I’m naturally meant to be a little heavier,’ and not worry about it.”

Moreover, Gaesser points to an American Cancer Society study published a few years ago that examined healthy, overweight women; that is, women with absolutely no health problems, but who were fat. The study found that losing weight alone “did absolutely nothing to improve their longevity,” Gaesser says.