I have always been thin and have never had extra weight to lose. My healthy weight hovers around the healthy/underweight line on Body Mass Index (BMI) charts. For me to get into the middle of the healthy range I would actually be really unhealthy.
At some stages I have been ‘skinny fat’ (where I look skinny but carry extra fat around my organs), other stages I have just been ‘skinny’ (not much fat, not much muscle), and other stages I have been ‘thin and strong’.
I am reaching a stage in my life where my metabolism is slowing, I am gaining some impressive old man strength, and I now carry a little body fat (far less than most men my age). I am still thin, but I am strong for my age.
A while ago I lost a lot of weight rather quickly. It was not intentional and it worried me. I wasn’t eating differently, I wasn’t exercising differently, and I didn’t know why I was quickly losing weight. Then I gained back some weight, I lost that and then lost some more in a very short time frame. This worried me so I went to the GP and was told not to worry, it was probably due to stress. I asked for a blood test, which didn’t show anything that could have caused this fluctuation in weight. From here my weight kept yo-yoing rather sharply, and I stayed a bit under my normal healthy weight.
My weight slowly went down until it reached a worrying low, then it slowly increased for quite some time. All of this was with the same food and exercise as before. Eventually my weight levelled off and remained reasonably stable.
Earlier this year I went to hospital for the first time in my life. At that time my weight was above the green line on the BMI chart meaning that I was within the ‘healthy’ BMI range. I wasn’t far above the line, but I was above it nonetheless.
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| Image with permission from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ABmi-chart_colored.gif |
While in hospital I was asked by numerous nurses and doctors if I have an eating disorder, and I was watched carefully at meal times to see what I was eating. The first few times I was feeling too poorly to think much of it. As I started to feel better and I kept being asked, and it started to irritate me. I was in the ‘healthy’ BMI range, and people were asking if I have an eating disorder and not trusting me when I said no, that seemed odd.
I wondered if everyone is asked if they have an eating disorder. I decided to find out.
I asked some of the other patients who were in the ‘overweight’ BMI range if they had ever been asked if they had an eating disorder. I also asked some of other patients who were in the ‘obese’ BMI range the same question. I was always careful in my wording, and they usually got a laugh when I told them why I was asking. Their responses surprised me.
None of the people in the ‘overweight’ BMI range had ever been asked, while only some of the people in the ‘obese’ range on the BMI chart had ever been asked if they had an eating disorder. I was in the ‘healthy’ range and was being asked several times per day!
It still gets under my skin that they question someone in the ‘healthy’ BMI range if they have an eating disorder, but no one ever asks anyone who is at the upper end of the ‘healthy’ range, or anyone who is in the ‘overweight’ range, it is only once people are within the 'obese' range that they are asked.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) says about 67% of adults in Australia were overweight or obese (36% were overweight but not obese, and 31% were obese). Under one third (31.7%) were within the healthy weight range and about one percent (1.3%) were underweight. Even though I am thin enough to be asked repeatedly if I have an eating disorder I am one of the people in the healthy weight range.
If you are reading this and are considering telling me that I could gain weight if I ‘just eat more’, please don’t bother. When I was younger, if I ate high fat and high sugar my metabolism would increase and I would lose weight. If I exercised more I would gain weight (muscle) and if I lazed around I would lose weight as my muscles atrophied. If I gain weight by eating more I gain fat around my organs, which is rather dangerous. The only way I can gain weight in a healthy way is to gain muscle. Providing advice when you have little concept of genetics or metabolism will do more harm than good. Besides, if you went around telling overweight people that they would lose weight if they ‘just eat less’ you would probably lose your voice before the end of the day.
Obesity, and to a lesser extent being overweight, increases the risk factors behind many diseases and is often associated with more severe outcomes of many injuries and diseases.
According to the ABS, over one thousand people die annually in Australia from obesity related causes. The World Health Organisation states about 2.8 million people die annually worldwide from obesity. According to TheWorldCounts.com obesity kills 4.72 million people annually, which is about 8% of global deaths. I’m not sure which statistic is correct, and I don't really care because they are both far too high.
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| Image with permission from https://renewbariatrics.com/australia-obesity-statistics/ |
If 2/3 of our country are overweight or obese, and being overweight causes health issues, and the estimated cost to the country runs into the billions, and obesity rates are increasing, then we have an issue with people who are overfat.
The crazy thing is, our medical system and our society in general is so desensitized to seeing overweight and obese people they don’t think anything of it until they get very large. Whereas a person who is at the lower end of the ‘healthy’ scale is treated with constant suspicion.
Not surprisingly, given the number of people who are overweight and the health issues that can be exacerbated in people who carry extra weight (as well as the monetary cost to society), most health advice offered is aimed at people losing weight. Very little advice is aimed at people with low weight who are trying to be healthy, and most of that advice is entirely wrong.
Once I realised this, I changed the way I exercised, and everything changed.
I don't really care about my weight, and I don't worry too much about my diet. If I do exercise it is with the intention to gain strength and ability. I now doing prochnost’ strength training, and ignore all the nonsense that I hear about training to bulk up and/or lose weight. I also ignore the often contradictory advice given to skinny fat people to cut or bulk first. The best part is I am stronger now than I have been in well over a decade.
I wish I knew about prochnost’ strength training back when I was in my early 20’s, I would have trained better, achieved far better results, and not felt inadequate due to being strong but underweight.
If you are skinny fat stop feeling inadequate. Get stronger. While you may never bulk up don't worry, train for strength, not size. Do some 2 minutes per day exercise challenges. Pretty soon you can be stronger than people twice your size!
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