You can measure your own waist circumference by using a tape measure and wrapping it around your abdomen, at the level of the top of
your hip bones. Make sure you measure at the end of exhalation,
without sucking in your gut – you’re only fooling yourself!
3. BMI does not always budge in response to lifestyle change
Given the number of papers my supervisor, Dr. Ross, and I have published on the topic, I would argue this is the biggest drawback of
using BMI: it doesn’t always change even though you may be getting
healthier. This is particularly so if you adopt a physically active lifestyle, along with a balanced diet, but are not necessarily cutting a
whole lot of calories. This lack of change in BMI or body weight is all
too often interpreted as a failure, resulting in the disappointed individual resuming their inactive lifestyle and unhealthy eating patterns.
However, as we have argued most recently in a paper in the Canadian Journal of Cardiology, several lines of evidence suggest that
weight loss or changes in BMI are not absolutely necessary to observe substantial health benefit from a healthy lifestyle. Thus, an apparent resistance to weight-loss should never be a reason for stopping
your healthy behaviours.
First, it is well established that increasing physical activity and associated improvement in cardiorespiratory fitness are associated with
profound reductions in coronary heart disease and related mortality
independent of weight or BMI. Second, exercise (even a single session) is associated with substantial reduction in several cardiometabolic risk factors (such as blood pressure, glucose tolerance, blood lipids, etc.) despite minimal or no change in body weight. Third, waist
circumference and abdominal fat (arguably, the most dangerous fat)
can be substantively reduced (10-20%) in response to exercise with
minimal or no weight loss. In fact, significant reductions in fat mass
often occur concurrent with equal increases in muscle mass in response to physical activity – equal but opposite (and beneficial!)
changes which are not detected by alterations in body weight on the
bathroom scale, and thus BMI.
So in the end, while BMI surely has its strengths in ease of use and
pretty good reliability in large populations, on an individual basis,
the greater focus should be on healthy behaviors: physical activity
and a healthy diet. And if you must measure something, check your
waist circumference.
Reference:
Ross R, & Janiszewski PM (2008). Is weight loss the optimal target for obesityrelated cardiovascular disease risk reduction? The Canadian journal of cardiology,
24 Suppl D PMID: 18787733
www.blogs.plos.org/obesitypanacea/2014/08/05/the-body-mass-index-bmi-says-nothing
-about-your-health/
MUNDANO
mag
27