Health Options
Dispelling
‘myth-information’
about obesityHow much of the nutrition information in your head came from television or radio? Daily health reports are part of local and national news. Talk shows repeatedly deal with health and weight issues. And, of course, incessant infomercials can sell you what you need to prevent disease and transform yourself into the perfect body.
Regretfully these potentially wonderful, but all too believable, forms of media have massaged many people's minds into believing a long list of nutrition urban legends, or what we call "myth-information." It seems that if something is repeated enough times, many people will accept it as true. This is the simple process of creating urban legends.
The area of nutrition appears to be an exceptionally fertile subject for partial truths and blurred statements of fact. Simple terminology and basic nutrition concepts are frequently misstated or misrepresented. The next few Health Options columns will focus on providing a foundation to evaluate the food and nutrition information you encounter.
The nutrition topic discussed most on television relates to the body weight of Americans. The CNN "Talkback Live" show aired on March 5 was particularly alarming. The show's storyboard was based on a recent Harris Poll of 1,011 individuals over the age of 25. More than 80 percent reported body weights that qualify as overweight. The video clips then implied that overweight equals over-fat.
To confuse things more, talk show guest Dr. Eric Braverman of Path Medical told a 5-foot-7-inch woman that she would be obese at 155 pounds. A 5-foot-9-inch male caller was told that he would be considered obese at 156 to 160 pounds. Likely, Dr. Braverman was presenting the numbers for an overweight condition rather than obesity.
The National Institutes of Health disagree with this talk doc. Their published cutoff for obesity for the woman would be 191 pounds and for the man, 203 pounds. But, keep in mind, these are general guidelines and can't be applied to everyone.
The tendency to assume that overweight equals over-fat is not always correct. The Centers for Disease Control defines overweight as increased body weight in relation to height, when compared to some standard of acceptable or desirable weights.
CDC clarifies this definition by stating, "Overweight may or may not be due to increases in body fat. For example, professional athletes may be very lean and muscular, with very little body fat, yet they may weigh more than others their same height simply because of their larger muscle mass. While they may qualify as "overweight," they are not necessarily "over fat."
CDC defines obesity "as an excessively high amount of body fat or adipose tissue in relation to lean body mass." Based simply on weight for height, Hulk Hogan qualifies as obese, even though he has a very high lean body mass in relation to body fat.
So why be so concerned about such terminology distinctions? The Harris poll also indicated that 12 percent of those underweight still wanted to lose weight. With this national obsession on target body-weight cutoffs, people are naturally focused on the wrong target -- weight. This tends to create a springboard for disordered eating that evolves to problems such as bulimia and anorexia nervosa. These disorders are growing as does Americans' obsession with the perfect body.
Health and fitness are possible at any weight. Fitness should be the goal, rather than a particular weight on a height/weight table.
Health Events
Alan Titchenal, Ph.D., C.N.S., is a sports nutritionist in the
Department of Human Nutrition, Food and Animal Science,
University of Hawaii-Manoa.Joannie Dobbs, Ph.D., C.N.S., is a food and nutrition consultant
and owner of Exploring New Concepts, a nutritional consulting firm.
She is also responsible for the nutritional analyses
indicated by an asterisk in this section.