Your Health

Obesity epidemic – maybe not

For the last 3 years or so the media have been constantly reporting on the new obesity epidemic spreading like wildfire throughout the USA and Canada. Adults and children are ballooning according to the reports, with one in 5 or more people having excessive weight troubles. Efforts to eliminate high caloric foods – read fast foods – and sugar laden soft drinks, even diet pop, and snacks such as chocolate, ice cream, potato chips and French fries are all under attack as the enemy. Why the concern? Because excess weight does increase the risks of diabetes, high blood pressure, stroke and heart disease. All are valid major concerns and I do not dispute these 3 health conditions as serious.

But the new fixation and definitions of overweight and obese are a problem.

It is not surprising the fat mania coincided with the more recent renewed interest and acceptance of the BMI – Body Mass Index – as a quick formula to determine safe weight. The formula is fast and easy once someone’s height and weight are known. Just go to www.nhlbisupport.com/bmi and your results are instant (with a category translation to the right).

Unfortunately, the BMI is often misused and has major limitations that are becoming well known in medical/research circles.

a. In a radio interview on CBC a few years with one of the major proponents of
the BMI pointed out:

1.it is based on statistics from the general population and not per se based
on actual research into body fat and weight factors

2. as a broad, statistical calculation, it should never be used to decide on
an individual’s weight and body health

3. the database used to create the formula was only of adult age 18 and over;
and he cautioned that the BMI scale should NOT be used on children as no
statistics from younger people were used

b. Since then, it has been found that the BMI does NOT reflect accurately the health
and dimensions of adult African Americans, Latinos, Southeast Asians and
Orientals – and especially females in these groups. I.e., non- European ethnic
groups

c. a study at Canada’s Queen’s University (covered by CBC’s The National the
first week in July suggested Caucasian Canadian adults who fall within the
formula still often have excess fat around the stomach and are at risk of the
above 3 demons. They are recommending measuring around the waist as the new test,
an idea that has been around for years in one form or another. Remember the old
high school Phys. Ed. waist pinch test? If an athlete had more than 1 inch of
flesh between thumb and index finger he/she was out of shape.

d. according to Time magazine, July 19, 2010, p. 13, yellow highlighted insert, the
BMI is not as good as determining deep hidden abdominal fat in children as
measuring their neck size (measurement details not supplied; obviously they were
not aware of a.2 above).


e. back in the 1970’s a study, by I believe Manual Life Insurance, came up with an interesting result. It found the ideal insurance customers were people who were overweight by about 10 lbs above standard medical charts. Why? Because when someone becomes seriously ill or undergoes surgery, weight loss is normal,
and people with some ‘excess body mass’ survived such illnesses more often than socalled healthier individuals. [This finding is supported by a Statistics Canada longevity study published in 2004 (See www.healthnewstrack.com/health-news-1606.html)].

f. finally, recognize -- as the women’s fashion magazines do -- that people come in
different body shapes. Some are pencils, some apples, some pears, some hour-
glass, etc.


So, is there a real epidemic or is it media mania and a misguided panic? According to Wikipedia,"Body mass index", "In 1998, the U.S. National Institutes of Health brought U.S. definitions into line with World Health Organization guidelines, lowering the normal/overweight cut-off from BMI 27.8 to BMI 25. This had the effect of redefining approximately 25 million Americans, previously "healthy" to "overweight".” [my Italics]


So, I suggest you do what I do. Just look around at your neighbourhood schools, malls or other places were large number of people – children and adults -- randomly gather, and see how many people look ’jiggly’ – at the waist and hips.

In Toronto and the high schools all the way north to lake Simcoe, some 80 kms away, the ‘jigglers’ are few and far between. Not one in 5 or one in 4.


In brief, TRUST YOUR OWN EYES and apply common sense.