Weight loss for everyone!

12th March 2008

posted in Eating Disorders, Fat Acceptance, Health/Nutrition, Personal |

After I had lost about a third of my body weight on The Diet Turned Eating Disorder, friends, family and co-workers all encouraged me to stop (what they thought was) the diet. “You look great,” they’d gush and then more sternly, “Now stop dieting.”

I, of course, took their mostly well-intentioned compliments as indicators of jealousy and attempts to sabotage an increasingly consuming and sick desire to lose more and more and more weight. (I say “mostly” because there were some women who didn’t like it when I, their quintessential fat girl friend, became thinner than they). In my defense, I’d throw out those widely used BMI standards, which showed that despite my dramatic weight loss, my BMI remained firmly lodged in the overweight category. “I’ll stop when I’m considered an average weight,” I reassured everyone.

It’s amazing how easily the lies come when you have an eating disorder.

My weight did eventually reach that magical average range on the BMI scale, but by that time my “diet” had long ceased being about weight or BMI. And by that point, my body was so beaten and worn down and I was so suicidally depressed from malnutrition and the eating disorder that I couldn’t even enjoy my newly-won thindom. Still, it’s probably a good thing I never saw this news article:

It seems that measuring body fat, rather than tracking your weight on a body mass index scale, can more accurately identify whether you need a lifestyle overhaul to lose weight.

“Using criteria based on body adiposity (fatness) rather than body weight would result in a much greater proportion of the study population receiving recommendations for weight loss,” said Dr. Ottavia Colombo of the University of Pavia in Italy.

The study referenced examined 23 men and 40 women, aged 20 to 65 years, who underwent body composition analysis. The volunteers were reported to be healthy, but led sedentary lives and were not following a low-calorie diet (how low is low?). Researchers compared BMI and body-fat measurements of each person, along with waist circumference and total body fat percentage and found that while BMI identified 11 percent of the group in need of weight loss, waist circumference measurements indicated 25 percent needed to lose weight.

Keep in mind: These same researchers are most likely laboring under the demagoguery of medical studies heavily influenced by and even funded by corporate special interests. It’s disputable how body fat negatively affects the health of any of these study participants and its questionable if the 25 percent even need to lose weight.

Despite adding another log to the fire that is increasingly incinerating any shred of BMI reliability, the article, of course, quickly cautions those readers with BMIs in the overweight category not to get overly optimistic:

But don’t get too excited if your BMI is still in the “Overweight” category - it doesn’t necessarily mean that the index has got it all wrong, ad you’re in prime health. Researchers found that the BMI Index usually under identifies risk, meaning that even those categorized as “Normal” might have a risky level of body fat.

Emphasis mine. BMI standards have continually been lowered so that more people qualify as overweight and obese and yet the standards under identifies risk? How fortunate for diet and weight loss companies if even those whose BMIs are considered average are also in need of weight loss. Does this make underweight the new paradigm of good health? Boy, talk about an anorexic ideation.

This article should, no doubt, please Walter Willett of the Harvard School of Public Health, who encourages people to reduce their weights toward the low end of the government-approved “normal” BMI range of 18.5 to 24.9 (the low end of the range is 108 and 129 pounds for women and men respectively). By this measurement, even rampant fat-hater MeMe Roth, who claims to have a BMI of 20, would be considered fat.

The article author might want to apply the logic in her next few lines to BMIs that fall outside that narrow and myopic realm considered “average.”

The next time you check out your own BMI categorization, keep in mind that the number can’t tell you everything about your health. Are you physically active and do you eat well? If you can answer an honest “yes” then you can probably get rid of that BMI bookmark.

Check, check and done.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 12th, 2008 at 1:59 pm and is filed under Eating Disorders, Fat Acceptance, Health/Nutrition, Personal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

1 On March 12th, 2008, Colin

said:

“Does this make underweight the new paradigm of good health? Boy, talk about an anorexic ideation.”

I saw my discharge papers when I was released from an ED treatment center. They listed my “ideal weight” as something a good ten pounds lower than I had been back when I was healthy–before I was, y’know, anorexic. I had gotten down to my “ideal” weight through months of restriction and other disordered behaviors. Awesome.

I hate the BMI so, so much.

posted on March 12th, 2008 at 2:27 pm

2 On March 12th, 2008, devil

I hate the BMI, too and I don’t even know what mine is. Anything that can be used to manipulate people in this way is hateful to me.

Why is the BMI number so closely followed without knowing anything about the person’s blood pressure, cholesterol levels, etc.? And even with those, what if the person IS eating properly and getting enough exercise? They’d likely need medication, not a strict warning to “get off the sofa and work out and stop shoveling in Twinkies” (or whatever the so-called experts are saying these days).

Bleh. Sorry to be so ranty…this really pisses me off.

posted on March 12th, 2008 at 4:59 pm

3 On March 12th, 2008, GiniLiz

Sheesh. That article says nothing. We all know that the BMI doesn’t account for body composition. What most people don’t know is that, while BMI is a crappy health predictor in general, it is a better predictor for many health problems than body fat percentage (elaborated on in Gaesser’s Big Fat Lies, if I remember correctly). Meaning? It isn’t the fat. BMI is useless for just about everything, but it is less useless than body fat percentage. If that makes any sense.

4 On March 12th, 2008, Meowser

I guess they also think people will get to 45 years old and stay there forever, and therefore will not ever have to concern themselves with things like the wasting illness and bone loss that happens to so many seniors. You’re so right, this is all about money, not about “health.”

posted on March 12th, 2008 at 9:06 pm

5 On March 12th, 2008, Lillian

I agree. I’ve read many articles and books by doctors in the vegetarian health movement and most of them recommend weights at the lower end of the BMI chart or even in the underweight category. I recall reading John Robbins and his comment that people of many people of normal weight were still rather fat.

posted on March 12th, 2008 at 9:16 pm

6 On March 12th, 2008, Sherie Sanders

I think you hit the nail on the head. It is probably marketing. Studies are jokes these days. I really hope pharma lands right there with big oil and tobacco in the minds of the American public. Shame Pharma and all its cronies! Hang your heads in shame, shame, shame!!!

posted on March 12th, 2008 at 9:46 pm

7 On March 13th, 2008, Kimu

The spin in this article is particularly asinine and I think important chunks may have been edited poorly, but I think this research is starting to hit on something important. My semi-uninformed intuition tells me it’s backwards — it’s not too much fat that’s an issue, but too little lean mass.

My doctor and my dietician (whom I see because I was having sanity-threatening hypoglycemia, not for a weight loss plan) both specialize in treating the HIV+ population. One thing I’ve learned through them is that for HIV+ people, maintaining lean body mass is absolutely crucial. They tend to have cycles of losing weight due to illness and then regaining…and just as with voluntary yoyo dieting these cycles can result in a loss of lean body mass, and the less lean mass the HIV+ person maintains, the more likely he or she is to transition to full AIDS.

Yes, this is a specialized case of immune-compromised individuals, but I can’t help but feel like there’s probably a lesson in there for all of us (conserve your lean mass! Avoid dieting!). It will be interesting to see if science catches up and examines this.

posted on March 13th, 2008 at 12:03 am

8 On March 14th, 2008, Luna

I think you’ve got it all wrong when you criticize the usage of body fat percentage over BMI, and the quote provided by the article that “even those categorized as “Normal” might have a risky level of body fat.” What the article failed to get across is the fact that by standards of body fat analysis anorexics are as unhealthy as the clinically obese. Anorexics have very high levels of body fat, because starving oneself causes the body to catabolize healthy lean mass over fat. A person with a fairly high BMI who exercises and eats healthy will have a drastically lower body fat percentage than an anorexic. Bodybuilders and fitness models tend to have very high BMI scores because muscle weighs more than fat, but this is no indication of their level of fitness. Therefore, using body fat methods of determining fitness over the BMI is preferable in determining overall fitness and health.

posted on March 14th, 2008 at 11:34 pm

9 On March 15th, 2008, Rachel

I don’t think so, Luna. The body draws upon its carbohydrate stores and fat deposits first and foremost in times of famine and begins to mobilize muscle mass and other proteins only when carbohydrate stores are depleted. The heart is the last muscle to be eroded.

posted on March 15th, 2008 at 12:10 am