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The science untangling the relationship between weight and health is ever-growing.
Getty / Roy Scott; Design / Morgan Johnson
While we know that excess weight is associated with certainhealth conditions, we dont always know why.
Having excess weight is not a moral failing, and its dangerous and cruel to treat it like one.
YourBMI is calculatedby taking your weight in kilograms and dividing it by your height in meters squared.
Design / Morgan Johnson
A normal or healthy weight BMI is one thats between 18.5 and 24.9.
Any number below that is considered underweight.
So, when we get into the research on weight and health, youll notice BMI used a lot.
Participants were sorted into categories based on BMI (normal, overweight, obese) and cardiometabolic health.
Results showed that, although BMI correlated with metabolic health, there were exceptions.
Conversely, more than 30 percent of those in the normal range were considered cardiometabolically unhealthy.
And having fat, it turns out, is crucial to your overall health.
Below, youll find some of the research about health conditions commonly associated with obesity.
But even in this seemingly straightforward case, increased weight mightnot be entirely to blame.
And, in astudyof 290 people undergoing weight-loss surgery, over 70 percent of them had sleep apnea.
However, exactly how excess weight directly causes or worsens existing sleep apnea isnt completely understood.
To what degree weight loss is an effective treatment for sleep apnea isnt totally clear.
So where does that claim come from?
Dr. Jensen specifically points to research from theDiabetes Prevention Program, a series of studies that began in 1996.
Theinitial trialsincluded 3,234 participants recruited from 27 clinical centers around the country.
These trends held up even after they followed the groups over 15 years.
But why is a higher BMI associated with throw in 2 diabetes?
But the exact way an excess amount of fat contributes to insulin resistanceisnt totally understood.
In general, inflammation is actually a good thing.
Several health markers are known to increase the risk of cardiovascular disease.
But the link between BMI and inflammation isnt totally understood.
But whether or not that inflammation is directly resulting from excess fat hasnt been proven, Dr. Jensen says.
We know that postmenopausal women with higher BMIs have higher levels of estrogen in their bodies.
And in some cases, there are even theories as to the mechanism of action behind the association.
But for others, we’re still not sure.
And this still doesn’t tell us why excess fat raises disease risk for some people and not others.
To challenge these assumptions, Bacon cites the obesity paradox.
Their data included nearly 2.9 million people and about 270,000 deaths.
In fact, those in the overweight rangewith BMIs between 25 and 30had the lowest mortality rate.
Onestudy, published in April inJAMA Cardiology, included data for 190,672 people collected between 1964 and 2015.
Those in the overweight category had a similar risk for mortality compared to those in the normal category.
As BMI increased beyond 23, the risk for cardiovascular events increased.
And that stigma and the stress it causes may contribute to poorer health.
And, if unresolved, thatcan contributeto physiological inflammation.
And having a diagnosis of clinical depression increased the risk for developing obesity by 58 percent.
Weight bias becomes especially dangerous when itoccurs in health care.
In these ways, weight stigma may have an immeasurable effect on their health.
That demonization gives way to fat shaming and all manner of stigmatization.
And its worth noting thatrecent researchsuggests thatjudging people about their weightdoesnt actually lead them them to lose any weight.
Really, the goal is not directly weight loss, Dr. Freedhoff says.
From our perspective it makes sense, Hunger says.
Only you and your doctor know what makes sense for you.
