Just to be sure there were no underlying issues (OTHER THAN A PANDEMIC? I felt like screaming), she suggested we get a blood test and sent us on our way.
While we did get the blood tests (all is well, thankfully), the whole encounter left me fuming. My son is a funny, smart kid who is athletic and thriving. In fact, he’s really strong. His baseball coaches say he’s doing great, and he can run for hours when he’s keeping up with his big brother at the park. He’s a fit and healthy kid, so FU, BMI.
Turns out, science is on my side.
Recently, the Women and Equalities Committee of the UK Parliament determined that the use of the Body Mass Index (BMI) in determining if an individual's weight is healthy should be scrapped immediately. The Committee concluded that BMI actually contributes to health issues such as eating disorders and people's mental health by disrupting body image and inviting social stigmas.
The Committee calls for the use of BMI to be stopped and for the adoption of a 'Health at Every Size' approach, which prioritizes health lifestyle choices over correcting weight.
Author, podcaster extraordinaire, and columnist Aubrey Gordon, who has written under the pseudonym “Your Fat Friend,” wrote a New York Times OpEd piece titled, ‘Leave Fat Kids Alone.’ She noted that calling out BMI doesn’t help kids and their families: Just the opposite. “Observational studies in Arkansas and California have shown that the practice of parental notification doesn’t appear to lead to individual weight loss or an overall reduction in students’ BMIs. One eating disorder treatment center called the report cards a ‘pathway to weight stigma’ that would most likely contribute to the development of eating disorders in predisposed students.”
“The effects of stigma were especially dire for young people, very fat people, and those who started dieting early in life,” Gordon wrote. “To cope, 79 percent of all respondents reported eating, 74 percent isolated themselves, and 41 percent left the situation or avoided it in the future. Rather than motivating fat people to lose weight, weight stigma had led to more isolation, more avoidance, and less support.”
I’ve written about my Loving Kindness meditation practice and how I’m working on the idea that fitness (now called wellness, right?) shouldn’t be a punitive experience. While I have gained some weight this year, I’m strong and healthy, I have no idea what my BMI is, and I don't fucking care! Loving Kindness is helping me to see my physical self as perfect as it is. Not without goals or ambition, but I'm grateful and well right now, and I hope to help my kids feel the same about themselves.
As I was working on this essay, my son climbed up on my lap. I wondered to myself how much longer he’ll want me to hold him like this. He is quickly becoming a grown-up kid, with long arms and legs that he has to curl up for both of us to fit on the chair.
No matter what some government chart says, I refuse to put the weight of a label on him or on myself. We have more important things to do, I think, as I give him a hug and inhale his sweet, just-from-the bath scent.
We are too busy being happy.