Advertising, pop culture and even doctors can talk about health and weight as if they are one and the same: small bodies are healthy, and large bodies must be unhealthy.
Still, we often place great importance on a person’s appearance when assessing their health, said Shana Meaney Spence, a registered dietitian in New York. And even if we learn to let go of the burden of societal beauty standards, it can be hard to feel confident in your body if you consider your shape to be unhealthy.
Experts say it may be time to sort out health and weight and focus more on our health-promoting behaviors than the number on the scale.
correlation vs causation
It’s important to understand that studies that point to dire health consequences for people with high body fat may only point to correlation, not causation, Larmy said.
While studies can say that people who are overweight often have more instances of heart disease, they can’t say that the weight caused heart problems, Laramie said.
But the importance of those studies should not be discounted, Shire said. Correlations are strong, and “from a physiology standpoint, in the clinic we work with correlations,” he said.
Other factors may still be at play, though, like access to medical care, Shire said.
And for those with larger bodies, good medical care can be hard to come by, said Brie Campos, a body image coach based in Paramus, New Jersey.
It’s not just her clients who are afraid to go to the doctor. Even though she educates people about their body image and mental health, Campos is often afraid to go to the doctor for fear that she will be embarrassed about her weight, she said.
“I could go for strep throat, I could go for a rash,” Campos said.
“Because of my body size, it’s very unlikely that I can go to the doctor and get a real diagnosis that ‘you should probably lose weight.'”
Entities are not business cards
Spence likes to remind her clients: Bodies are not business cards.
We can’t just take a look at a person’s body and get a sense of their health, their habits or their biology, she said.
“Do we have access to someone’s medical records? Are we talking to their doctor?” he said. “And often health is honestly out of our control sometimes. There are so many chronic diseases that people just develop.”
Although we can see large-scale correlations between body size and health status, once researchers looked at individuals, it wasn’t clear, Sherer said.
“It is really accepted in the field at large that not everyone who has a very high BMI has type 2 diabetes,” he said.
People in small bodies can develop heart disease or diabetes, and there are many people in large bodies who are considered completely metabolically healthy, Sherer said.
“It’s just a reflection of our genetic diversity and how we cope with the extra calories,” he said.
Does dieting make us healthier?
What does it mean to be healthy anyway? And can dieting help you get there?
It depends on what parts of health you prioritize.
Health is comprised of many factors. Spence said avoiding illness is one, but maintaining mental health, having active social networks, getting enough sleep and reducing stress is one thing.
She adds that limiting your calories or cutting out certain foods may not be healthy overall if it negatively impacts your mental health or prevents you from enjoying time with friends and family. And sometimes those restrictions can make you lose weight without properly nourishing your body.
“Losing weight doesn’t equate to happiness, and it doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll be healthy because losing weight can also be harmful to your health,” Spence said.
Campos said that if our phones didn’t work the way they were intended, most people wouldn’t be using them anymore.
“But the diet culture has done a great job of tricking us that you can have whatever you want. You’ll get health, you’ll get fitness, you’ll get compliments.”
What should we pay attention to if we want to be healthy if we are not losing weight? Focus on health-promoting behaviors like quitting smoking, moving more, sleeping better, stressing less, and eating the foods that tell you you need to, Laramie said.
You may lose weight as a result, but that’s not the goal, he said.
“Not focusing on the weight means we can actually focus on some healthy behaviors that are more sustainable,” Thompson-Wesson said.
(This story has not been edited by seemayo staff and is published from a rss feed)