Don't Let The Scales Rule Your Life

What is the "obesity crisis? and how is it measured?" How do we know what a 'healthy weight' is and how on earth can we measure our progress reaching it?

BMI - (Bloomin Misleading Indicator! )

Many weight loss websites stick to a BMI (Body Mass Index) calculator where you key in your height, weight etc. Usually there is a table or graph that shows you whether your result is "acceptable", or if you need to take action to reduce your BMI by loosing weight. The graph is a really narrow view of your weight and for many years, health professionals and those who study weight loss and fitness have been creating a groundswell of opinion against the use of BMI as a health indicator.

Created in the early 1800's by Adolfe Quetelet, BMI was formerly known as the Quetelet Index. He thought that a person's weight should be proportionate to their height. Your weight in kilograms is divided by the square of your height in centimetres to give your BMI measurement.

However, BMI was originally developed to compare people with relatively inactive lifestyles with an average body shape and size. In reality we are all quite different. A tall person very often has a different frame than a shorter person. We are not proportionately the same. BMI takes no account of bone density or body type. BMI does not even differentiate between muscle and fat! BMI takes no account of how fit you are. BMI is great for government statisticians who like to study population trends and report to Parliament, (even the World Health Organisation still uses it!) but it was never even intended to be a measure of an individual's appropriate shape and size. It's simplicity that has made it so popular all these years.

Hip to Waist Ratio - Increasingly scientific and medical evidence is convinced that the best measure of your health is to measure the ratio of your waist measurement to your hip measurement. Just take a tape measure and measure your waist (at the narrowest point) and your hips (at the widest point). Divide your waist measurement by your hip measurement to get your hip to waist ratio. Any figure greater than 0.8 means that you may want to work on reducing your hip to waist ratio, thereby reducing your risk of serious disease eg. heart disease, stroke, diabetes, cancer, high blood pressure.

Excess fat around your middle is known to be linked to a greater risk of serious health problems. This fat is seen as "toxic fat" and is more metabolically active than fat elsewhere on your body. This fat generates hormones which can affect the way your body deals with insulin, raising blood pressure and cholesterol in the body. Modern sedentary lifestyle means that this stored fat is rarely burnt off and consequently increased fats and sugars, the by-product of the breakdown of the stored fat, are channelled into the bloodstream, giving a person greater risk of heart disease and diabetes.

Weighing yourself too often can be very de-motivating! Years of working in the slimming industry has seen me witness tears and tantrums at the scales, from people so utterly fed up and frustrated at their disappointing results after years of dieting. Why do we allow that number we see on the weigh scale to tell us whether we are having a "good" day or a "bad" day? Consequently, the number on the scales dictates whether we can reward our behaviour or punish ourselves still further. The weigh scale is responsible for serious mind games that dieters continually consent to play. I have seen people cry over the gain or even the loss of half a pound at the scale. Weighed up against the lifetime of a person, why should half a pound be so significant? I am all for measuring success and using it as motivation to continue, but like the above measures, on its own, the weigh scale gives a distorted view of your progress towards good health. Indeed, there are Olympic athletes who are technically "overweight". The scale says they weigh more than they should for their height....Using a weigh scale that reads your body fat percentage and even better your water composition as well as your weight, give a much more accurate picture of your health and your progress.

Tape Measure - One of the most satisfying aspects of becoming healthier is that all those bits of your body you used to hide away under clothes, look so much better when you have slimmed down. Measuring the bits of your body you really don't like (upper arm, thighs, waist to name but a few...) with a tape measure when you start out on your journey to better health and a slimmer body, will give you enormous encouragement as you see the centimetres reducing. It's not uncommon to see little change on the weigh scale but to remain motivated by seeing a change in your measurements.

Your Clothes Size - A sure sign that you are on the way to a slimmer body and a healthier you is that your clothes are fitting you better. It's an incredibly simple gauge of your success and one that gives many people great pleasure and pride in themselves. People that have been successful in losing weight and keeping it off will tell you that they threw out all the clothes that were too big for them, as they became too big. Holding on to clothes that are too big for you is like telling yourself that you will be needing them again in the future. You won't - so get rid of them!

Incidentally, whenever people are asked why they want to lose weight and become healthier, they often reply by saying they want to fit into smaller clothes, I am always intrigued. No one ever wants to go to all that effort just for the smaller sized clothes. If you have ever told yourself in the past that your motivation to lose weight is to "fit into smaller clothes", ask yourself "Why?" I can guarantee that it is not simply the smaller clothes you want, but something deeper that comes from being ABLE to fit into smaller clothes.

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