When It Comes to the Topic of Fat, We Should Just Lighten Up
Researchers are calling it a public health crisis, an exploding “obesity epidemic.”
Californians, according to state health officials, are growing at an alarming rate . . . and they don’t mean we’re getting taller. One out of every two Californians is fat and almost one-fifth of us are dangerously obese.
So put down that doughnut and look around. If it’s not your spouse, your sister, your co-worker or your neighbor jiggling when they walk . . . chances are it’s you.
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If you saw the recent headline in The Times--”Most Californians Are Fat, Study Finds”--you probably reacted the same way I did, scrambling to find yourself on the accompanying chart that listed acceptable body weights by height.
And if you read the story, you noticed that the “normal” range for a healthy body has shifted downward through the years, just as our weights have shifted up. Which means you can be skinnier than you were two years ago, yet be fatter in the experts’ eyes.
The chart assigns a body mass index, or BMI, to every combination of height and weight. And that single number determines if you’re tubby or thin.
If your BMI equals 25 or more (for example, 150 pounds at 5-foot-5), you’re overweight, a candidate for Jenny Craig. Once your BMI reaches 30--that’s 180 pounds for a 5-foot-5-inch man or woman--you’re not just hefty but obese.
Under the new standards, the allowable weights are the same for men and women and there is no longer any concession for age. So forget that old “But muscle weighs more than fat!” excuse. And no more special dispensation for the three kids and 20 years that have padded your thighs.
The guidelines were recalculated by a special panel--all thin folks, no doubt--that concluded that the health risks of obesity warranted an early warning for people nearing the upper limits of a healthy weight range.
“What these standards are supposed to do is get the general public and medical practitioners to at least look at the numbers . . . to realize that as a society we’re headed toward obesity,” explained Susan B. Foerster, chief of the Cancer Prevention and Nutrition section of the California Department of Health Services, which provided data for the report.
If the news and accompanying chart alarmed you, that may help prolong your life, if you’re teetering on the overweight side.
“This is an attempt to get people to pay attention to what’s happening to our bodies . . . so you jump on that bathroom scale every once in a while to make sure a few pounds aren’t sneaking up on you,” Foerster said.
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As if, in this season of bikinis and Speedos and songs extolling thongs, our fat has anywhere to hide. As if we need a chart to tell us it’s time to lay off the Ben & Jerry’s, to explain why we can’t seem to fasten our jeans.
I can’t help but interpret the unforgiving numbers as just one more way of heaping guilt on overflowing plates.
In the five-mile trip from office to home, I encounter no fewer than a dozen signs, tacked onto fences and light poles, touting weight-loss programs: “Zap your fat!” “Lose Weight Now.” “Amazing New Fat-Burning Breakthrough.”
And I feel myself growing larger and more slovenly with every picture of a bikini-clad model, every weight-loss ad I read. Like a fat woman being forced into a too-tight dress, this obsession with weight is uncomfortably squeezing me . . . and my BMI is only 23! I’m not quarreling with our concern over bonafide obesity. About 33,000 Californians die each year from health problems related to obesity. Their health care costs the state an estimated $6 billion annually.
But is every woman carrying a few extra pounds headed for a double-wide coffin? And what message are we sending our daughters--already struggling with body image issues--with our preoccupation with weight?
Foerster admits that the whole notion of rigid weight limits has been fraught with controversy. “The issue of what’s an ideal body weight has been batted around for years,” she says. “There’s been a lot of controversy about what numbers to use . . . and about cultural and genetic issues.”
I think of folks like my aunt--always short and squat, but still healthy and strong, well into her 70s. In her youth, she wore short skirts and bright dresses with pride. “I’m not fat,” she’d insist, “just short for my size.”
And what of all those “big boned” girls I grew up with, who never turned down a second dessert and flaunted their big breasts and thighs?
In this country today, two-thirds of teenage girls are dieting at any one time, striving for scrawny model bodies. To them, how do these messages square: Love yourself. It’s OK not to be thin . . . and Whoa, put down that fork! A few more pounds and you’re in Fat City.
Even for researchers, that’s a sensitive issue. “There’s a real concern on the part of folks who set these standards about not feeding into the eating disorder problem that already exists among teens,” Foerster says. “But they also worry that teenagers are getting heavier and are unlikely to lose that fat as they age.”
Maybe, but I think of all the pudgy little girls I’ve known who are growing into beautiful young women--athletes, with strong, healthy bodies . . . never mind that the chart might put them on the corpulent side.
And I find myself siding with my friend, who brought her “big boned” daughter through adolescence without ever carping about her size. “She looks in the same mirror I do,” she’d tell us, “and if she likes what she sees, that’s good enough for me.”
And at the risk of sounding cavalier, I wonder if we all need to lighten up . . . in ways that have nothing to do with charts and calories.
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Sandy Banks’ column is published on Sundays and Tuesdays. Her e-mail address is sandy.banks@latimes.com.
