Whats Wrong With Weight Charts Going for the 3 Increases: Increase in Health, Increase in Happiness

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Whats Wrong With Weight ChartsGoing for the 3
Increases Increase in Health, Increase in
Happiness Increase in Energy

• Strategies for Success in Weight Management
• By James J. Messina, Ph.D.

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Calculating Lean Body Mass

• The best weight for you is your lean body mass
  (everything but fat) plus just the amount of fat
  necessary for good health
• 10 percent to 18 percent of total body weight for
  men
• 18 percent to 25 percent of total body weight for
  women
• A health professional can estimate percentage by
  measuring body fat with skinfold caliper

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Body Mass Index

• Most people do not have their lean body mass
  measured
• A more common, but less accurate, way to
  determine your ideal weight is to use standard
  weight charts based on a person's height and
  frame
• BMI Measures weight (in kilograms) divided by
  height, squared

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Body Mass Index Ranges
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Ideal Calculated Weight

• For Men 106 lbs. plus six lbs. for each inch in
  height over five feet
• For Women 100 lbs. plus five lbs. for each inch
  in height over five feet
• Using NIH guidelines, roughly 100 pounds greater
  than the ideal Calculated Weight constitutes
  clinically severe obesity

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How the charts got started

• 1942, Louis Dublin, a statistician at
  Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, grouped four
  million of MetLife insured Put categories based
  on height, body frame (small, medium or large)
  weight
• Discovered who lived longest were ones who
  maintained their body weight at the level for
  average 25-year-olds

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How the charts got started

• Metropolitan Life tables widely used for
  determining recommended body weights
• 1942 tables gave "ideal body weights
• 1959 revised as"desirable body weights
• 1983 revised as "height and weight tables"
• Weights given in the 1983 tables are heavier than
  the 1942 tables because, in general, heavier
  people live longer today

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Critique of MetLife Charts

• Insured people tend to be healthier than
  uninsured people
• Frame size was never consistently measured
• People included were predominantly white
  middle-classed
• Some persons were actually weighed, some were not
• Some wore shoes and/or clothing, some did not
• Tables do not consider percentage of body fat or
  distribution known as factors in longevity

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Use of the Charts

• Many experts say 1942 tables are more accurate
  because they indicate lower "ideal weights"
• Many experts support the use of the 1983 tables,
  citing that these are the latest statistical
  sampling of such matters
• The American Heart Association recommends using
  1959 tables rather than the newer tables that
  suggest somewhat higher weights

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Charts make it obvious

• US Army, US National Center for Health
  Statistics, North American Association for Study
  of Obesity USDA
• There is no consensus of "ideal body weight"
• It is different for every individual
• Depends on health, body fat content
  distribution, musculature, age, activity,
  metabolism, other factors not simple to measure
  accurately

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What we learn from looking at charts

• You your physician or dietitian must decide
  what your ideal weight should be
• You probably have an idea what that weight is
• Start conservatively
• If you reach your target weight still feel you
  need to trim off additional weight, you always
  have option to set a new target goal.

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Online Weight Chart resources

• http//www.metlife.com/Lifeadvice/Tools/Heightnwei
  ght/index.html
• http//www.imchubby.com/fwchartm.shtml
• http//www.med.umich.edu/1libr/primry/life15.htm
• http//www.bcbsga.com/services/quizzes/heart/wells
  ource_heart/weight.htm