Define “obese”
According to the NY Times, I was obese 6 months ago. I weighed 138lbs on my 5″3 body with 33.6% body fat. I wore a size 8-10. That, according to this NY Times article, is obese. If this is obese, than I worry about what the rest of the world can be labelled!
According to the article, my ideal weight is 115lbs – a weight I haven’t been since I was 14 years old and a weight I doubt I’ll ever get to eating and exercising normally. This is a weight I could technically get to only if I were to severely restrict my calorie intake and exercise fanatically. Is this something the NY Times wants to encourage? Can you see the headline – Get anorexic says the NY Times!?
They work it out by saying that for women, you should start with 100lbs for the first 5 feet of height and add 5lbs for every inch above that. Subtract 10% for small frames and add 10% for large frames. But otherwise, every 5″3 woman should weigh 115lbs. Talk about societal pressure.
When they talk about body fat, the ideal body fat percentage for women – all women are the same according to them – should be 20-21% and the average woman is 22-25%. Anything above 30% is ‘obese’ – and that’s a direct quote.
I know that I had fat to lose – and still do – but at no stage of my weight loss journey would I have considered myself obese. Two years ago, when I weighed 150lbs, I was overweight, but not obese. And I don’t want to live in a world where 138lbs is considered to be obese. That, in my opinion, is a world where newspaper disguise themselves as experts and exert pressure for all women to become anorexic, or at least perpetuate the body image issues that we all face on a daily basis.
Making blanket statements is always dangerous. I don’t believe that the BMI scale is the be all and end all either as it doesn’t take body fat % into account at all, but neither should be be so quick to label people as obese based on one number. If 138lbs is obese, what is 170lbs? 250lbs? Where does the next label start? Does 170lbs become morbidly obese in this new NY Times world?
There are plenty of negative influences out there and body image issues abound. It’s completely unnecessary to introduce new labels and new issues for women already bombarded with weight-loss and unattainable shapes and figures. The NY Times should back off creating impossible goals and discouraging the average person from trying to be healthy.
Is it really lying?
There’s a story in the Daily Mail about how presenter Fern Britton had lap-band surgery to lose weight but told the public that she’d lost the weight through diet and exercise. It’s the same thing that Star Jones did and the public is up in arms.
The difference here is that Star Jones denied the surgery and Fern Britton was never asked and therefore didn’t technically lie, she just didn’t offer the truth. And while lap-band surgery is a way to get started on the weight loss, you do have to incorporate diet and exercise in order to keep the weight off – I’ve read many blogs by people who’ve had the surgery and regained all the weight over a couple of years. So, technically she wasn’t lying.
And yet people feel cheated and discouraged. I think I undertstand the discouragement more than anything. I think by not volunteering that she had surgery, she gave the impression that anyone could achieve the weight loss that she had achieved. And while that completely true in my opinion, as soon as people found out that she had had a little “help”, they no longer focus on the diet and exercise. They focus on the surgery and the fact that they’re just as overweight as Fern was and if she had to resort to surgery, then they would have to. If they don’t have the money for the surgery, oh well, they can’t lose the weight.
And that, my friends, is bull.
I really don’t agree with gastric bypasses, lap-band surgeries or any surgical interention personally but whatever method you choose to jumpstart your weightloss, you still need to pay attention to diet and exercise in order to get healthy and stay there. In 99% of cases, the reason you gained weight was through (bad) diet and (lack of) exercise, so if you continue those trends after you’ve lost your weight, it’s inevitable that you’ll regain.
Fern Britton and Star Jones lost weight through surgery, but you can bet your bottom dollar that they’re keeping it off through diet and exercise.
Unless you disagree?
I'm a twenty-something Aussie who was living in Canada and has now moved to New Zealand and trying to be somewhat strong and healthy while I navigate the perils of living with my Boy, freelancing and planning a long-distance wedding without losing my mind. Welcome!
