If you consider yourself fairly trim—perhaps a woman who is 5’7’’ and weighs about 135 to 140 pounds, or a man 
who measures an even 6 feet and weighs 170 pounds—you may think you don’t have to worry about your weight and your health. You may need to think again.
We’ve all been trained to assume that a lower BMI, or Body Mass Index, always equals better health. But recent research from the Mayo Clinic says what really matters is body fat, not weight or BMI. You may appear to be in pretty good shape, but form isn’t always an accurate indicator of body fat. And if you carry a relatively high percentage of body fat – more than 20 percent for men or 30 percent for women—you may still be at increased risk for serious health problems such as diabetes or heart disease.
And plenty of us appear to carry those risky levels of body fat, even at weights and BMIs long considered healthy or normal. The problem appears so common that the researchers even gave it a new name – “normal weight obesity.”
How did the research team manage to create a whole new “fat” category?
- They started by looking at more than 2,100 men and women with weights classified as “normal,” meaning a BMI between 18.5 and 24.9.
- Then they assessed each person’s percentage of body fat.
- Finally, researchers measured each person’s risk factors for heart disease and metabolic disorders such as diabetes.
To me, the Mayo findings are shocking. More than half the adults in the study qualified as having normal weight obesity. These people had significantly higher rates of worrisome changes in their blood chemistry, such as abnormal levels of cholesterol or higher rates of metabolic syndrome, a precursor to diabetes. I think this study points out important new ways of thinking about healthy weight.
Since BMI is simply a calculation involving your height and weight, questions about its accuracy as a measure of health aren’t entirely new. But to me, this study says we need to think about weight in a whole new way. Don’t just pay attention to the number on the scale or how you look. Get an assessment of your body composition. Determining your waist-to-hip ratio is an easy place to start.
And since weight-related issues affect many of the conditions covered in Navigenics Health Compass, we’ll be using this research to take a new look at the health guidance we provide our members.
(In the interest of full disclosure, I should note that Navigenics is collaborating with Mayo on a different line of research involving genetic information.)
irysya13 Nov 5, 2008
Problems which are connected with weight, concern each of us. We eat, first, much. Secondly - not natural products. Thirdly, it is necessary to do every day morning exercises.