Normal Weight, Underweight, and Overweight Don’t Necessarily Mean Anything About How Healthy You Are
How much you weigh may not be a good indicator of your overall health and your risk for developing serious health problems.
I’ve been telling people for years that just because I’m thin does NOT mean I’m in good shape. I don’t remember the last time I set foot in the gym, for instance, and I’m not what you might call, um, active. I’m like the total opposite of active. The most exercise I get is chasing the dogs away from stuff they shouldn’t be eating, and the occassional session on the Wii. Seriously.
And FINALLY I have something solid to point people toward when it comes up. An article from HealthDay News breaks it down in simple terms:
Despite appearances to the contrary, more than half of normal-weight Americans have a high percentage of body fat. And, like their overweight contemporaries, this makes them susceptible to heart disease, diabetes and other metabolic disorders, a new study says.
Men whose body fat is greater than 20 percent and women whose body fat is greater than 30 percent are suffering from “normal weight obesity,” the study authors said, even though their weight may be normal for their size. …
…For the study, [lead researcher Dr. Francisco] Lopez-Jimenez [a Mayo Clinic cardiologist] and his colleagues collected data on 2,127 people who participated in the U.S. government’s Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. Specifically, the researchers looked at risk factors for heart disease, diabetes, and metabolic syndrome, a precursor of diabetes.
The researchers found that 61 percent of the participants had levels of body fat that indicated “normal weight obesity.” In addition, Lopez-Jimenez’s group found changes in blood chemistry that can affect heart and metabolic health, including high cholesterol; high levels of leptin, a hormone found in fat and other tissues that’s involved in appetite regulation; and high rates of metabolic syndrome.
In other words, it’s less about your weight and more about your body fat percentage. And there is such a thing as skinny-fat. So don’t think that just because you’re naturally a size 4 that you’re totally healthy, or that if you’re a size 16 you’re automatically going to die of heart disease at a young age — and don’t make those assumptions about the people around you, either.
Does this information change your concept of your health level, or maybe that of someone close to you?
(image: Newscom)
Contents © Copyright 2008 Kristen King
Tags: womens health blog, womens health, women, woman, health, skinny fat, normal weight, healthy weight, underweight, too thin, too skinny, overweight, fat, obese, too heavy, weight and health, health risks of being overweight, health risks of being obese, lively women, kristen king
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