Weighty issues

[percival]

Last Thursday, I opened a copy of Elle at a bookstore in Walla Walla. I hoped to find some interesting nutrition information - after all, it was the "body issue". Lo and behold, the three cases of overweight women (or women with weight problems) were women who I'd consider perfectly healthy. One women who really wanted to shift some weight was 5'7" and weighed 140 pounds.

Hhhhhhhhhhhwhat? Say that again?

I'm 5'7" and weigh ten and a half stone. I've struggled with my weight all my life, and now that I've finally decided to be happy with what I weigh, this. An invitation to feel really bad about myself and start dieting.

I let the magazine slip back onto the stand as if it were hot coals.

I am healthy, my Body Mass Index is fine, my husband loves the way I look, and I'm definitely not fat. (Whew - I can't believe I just typed that last clause ...) We can all eat more healthily, but believe me, this was not about health, even though the article advocated 7 servings of fruit and veg a day, it was about losing weight.

What's so bad about your set-point weight being within a healty Body Mass Index range of 18 to 25? (The set-point weight is the weight your body tends to naturally stabilise at.) Especially when each new, radical diet that is not a permanent change of eating habits makes your metabolism more efficient, to the point that after a few crash diets too many, you pile on the pounds by merely looking at a carrot. More often than not, when you read the story of really heavy women, they started getting huge by going on a crash diet to lose a couple of pounds that wouldn't shift - after a baby, for example. After their crash diet, these women went back to eating normally. Their bodies reacted by stockpiling reserves, because they had just been starved. The weight went back on and then some. Time for another diet ... Imagine going on diet after diet, only to end up hugely obese! If these women had been able to accept their few pounds over the limit and tried to maintain that weight, they would be far more shapely and healthy now.

What we need is a mindset that encourages people to just eat healthily and get enough exercise, not a race for the most svelte body.

Thank you for listening

::gets off soapbox::

Comments

[perceval.livejournal.com]

The logical medium is being healthy and mindfully enjoying one's food, I guess :)