What If We Didn’t Use Body Size Or Weight To Judge Health?
I’m going to ask you a question, and I want you to be really honest with yourself when you answer… Focus on the first thing that comes into your mind.
How do you judge if someone is healthy or unhealthy? How do you judge your own health?
I’m fairly confident in saying I bet almost all of you reading will have immediately thought of:
Weight
Body fat
Appearance
Body shape and size
Maybeeee muscle mass/tone, if we’re pushing it.
These answers are very revealing. They show the preconceived ideas we’ve been taught to hold around the link between weight or size, and health status.
But what if I told you there is no direct link between your weight and your health?
I’m not going to BS and say your bodyweight has absolutely no impact on your health status. In some circumstances, it can absolutely impair or improve your health. For example, someone in an obese body may find exercise or movement more difficult, compromising their cardiovascular health and fitness. They may experience heightened cravings and increased production of hunger hormones, driving them to eat more and more - particularly high-fat, high-sugar, processed and refined foods. There’s no denying this isn’t doing their health any favours - but this relationship between weight and health is an indirect one.
There is no direct connection between bodyweight and health status. For many people, being in a smaller body is more unhealthy for them than if they were living in a larger one.
How can this be true?
For some, females especially, having excessively low levels of body fat can interfere with many important body functions and processes - things which are true indicators of health. These include:
HORMONE HEALTH
Insufficient body fat can disrupt hormone production and balance, causing many problems from cardiovascular complications, high cholesterol levels, poor sleep, inflammation, digestive disturbances, infertility or problems with reproductive health, regular menstruation (in females) and sexual function.
ENERGY LEVELS AND PERFORMANCE
If you don’t have enough fat stored, your body doesn’t have energy reserves to draw from in times of need. This can result in low energy levels, compromised performance and ongoing fatigue.
ORGAN PROTECTION
Body fat protects and cushions your vital organs, and you need to have enough fat for this to happen.
BONE HEALTH
Without adequate fat your bone mineral density will decrease over time, leaving you at higher risk of fractures and osteoporosis along with other long-term functional problems.
IMMUNE FUNCTION
Excessively low body fat compromises your immune system function, leaving you at increased risk of infection and illness. You’ll also likely experience slower healing of wounds or sicknesses.
SKIN AND HAIR HEALTH
Yes, these are more on the appearance side of things, but your skin and hair health can indicate what’s going on in your body. If you’re lacking in body fat, you’ll experience dry, sometimes flaky, red or sore skin, thinning nails and hair, and excessive hair loss and dryness.
HEART HEALTH
Your body fat is crucial for your cardiovascular health, so if you don’t have enough this puts you at greater risk of cardiovascular disease including stroke, heart attack and coronary heart disease.
FERTILITY/PREGNANCY
Without enough body fat, a woman’s body can’t sustain a healthy pregnancy. This is why, when women drop below whatever is a “healthy” weight for them, they’ll likely experience delayed or absent periods (called amenorrhea), problems falling pregnant, compromised sexual function and low (or no) production of key reproductive hormones like progesterone and oestrogen. This is the female body’s way of saying “You’re not keeping me healthy, so you definitely can’t keep a growing baby healthy right now too!”
DEFICIENCIES
Low body fat levels can also lead to nutrient deficiencies including low iron or anaemia, or problems with absorbing nutrients from your food.
A “healthy” amount of body fat will look different for everyone. Different genetics, body types, activity levels, hormonal profiles, exercise regimes, ages, ethnicities, the list goes on, all impact how much body fat you need for optimal health and function. If you notice some of the above health complications occurring, seek help from a health professional or nutritionist for support right away.
The importance of fat cells
Adipocytes, or fat cells, have become associated with obesity, metabolic disease, and “fatness” - all of which we automatically assume mark someone as being unhealthy. However these fat cells play such an important role in your body, contributing to energy balance, reproduction, hormonal signalling and balance, nutrient absorption, organ and joint protection, body temperature regulation, and nutritional balance.
So having body fat is not necessarily a signal of someone’s health. As we’ve covered, for some people it is more dangerous to be in a smaller body with less fat. Due to a number of factors, some bodies are unable or unwilling to sustain functions like menstruation and hormone production at a higher weight than others.
So let’s say Jane and Emma are best friends. They both normally sit at around 23% body fat. They join an 8-week program (don’t get me STARTED on how much I hate these - SO unhealthy! And yes, I’m generalising…) and both of them drop to 20% body fat. Jane loses her period, her hair starts falling out, she feels lethargic and notices she’s getting sick often. Whereas Emma feels totally fine, her periods continue as normal and she doesn’t notice any unwanted side effects or consequences from her fat loss.
As you can see, different bodies need different amounts of fat to be “healthy”, so you can never judge every body you see with the same lens. It’s like deciding whether boots or sneakers are better shoes - they’re different and have different purposes, so to compare them would be irrelevant and inapplicable.
Metabolically healthy obesity
The last thing I’ll mention here is the phenomenon known as metabolically healthy obesity (MHO). This refers to someone who has healthy blood pressure, cholesterol and triglyceride levels (aka. blood lipid or fat levels) and blood sugar, yet also has long-term obesity or morbid obesity. These people are still considered “healthy” according to science, despite their obese status. In fact, they even appear to have some level of protection against disease. There are complexities around this, for example the distribution of fat and genetics will influence whether someone who is MHO is at higher risk of disease over the long-term, and if they’re likely to progress towards insulin resistance and later type 2 diabetes. But you can clearly see from this example that greater body fat does not equal unhealthy.
So how do we determine if someone is healthy?
What if, instead of judging someone based on their body and appearance, we rethink how we assess health? Would that also shift the way we’ve come to associate bigger bodies with laziness, unworthiness, shame and rejection? Would it give people in larger bodies the chance to work towards feeling comfortable in the body they were born with, and allow them to realise that their size and weight do not make them less loveable, worthy, attractive…or even healthy?
I’d suggest some alternative indicators of health we could use to more accurately assess our own, or others’, health status (if you really feel the need to) include:
REGULARITY OF MOVEMENT
How often do you move your body - incidentally or intentionally? It doesn’t have to be high-intensity cardio or HIIT sessions in the gym. Walking, dancing, swimming, yoga, Pilates, stretching, they all count. The key to improving health is to reduce the time you spend sitting and being inactive, so any form of movement contributes to better health.
ENERGY LEVELS
Do you feel energised, generally, each day? Or are you always tired and lethargic?
EMOTIONAL HEALTH
Do you experience extreme stress, overwhelm and anxiety? Do you notice significant mood swings and emotional instability? If so, your health might not be in the most optimal place right now.
MUSCLE MASS
How much lean muscle do you have? Muscle is a metabolically active tissue, with so many crucial roles in your body. It supports posture, strength, day-to-day functional movement, I could go on forever. Greater muscle mass definitely has positive implications for your health.
SLEEP QUALITY
Do you sleep for long enough each night, and is your sleep undisturbed and uninterrupted for the most part? Do you wake feeling rested? Sleep is an enormous factor influencing your health, so optimal sleep quality and quantity is an excellent indication that you’re nurturing your health and wellbeing.
NUTRITIONAL BALANCE AND RELATIONSHIP WITH FOOD
Are you eating a balanced diet, including plenty of protein, fats, carbohydrates and fibre? Are you getting plenty of vegetables each day, and eating enough throughout the entire day? Are you listening to your body’s hunger cues and responding accordingly? Are you incorporating “less nutritious” foods into your diet when you really want them, without guilt? Do you have a positive relationship with food, recognising there are so many purposes for food beyond fuelling your body? Do you avoid “compensating” with exercise or food restriction when you inevitably overeat on occasion? If the answers to any (or all!) of these questions is yes, that’s an excellent indicator of good health!
RELATIONSHIPS WITH PEOPLE
We talk a lot about food and exercise habits as a reflection of health status. But the people around us affect our health just as much. Do the people you spend time with lift you up, and make your soul smile? Do they leave you feeling good about yourself, or energised after spending time with them? Do you feel supported and cared for by your loved ones? If yes, those are some positive relationships you’ve got - contributing to greater emotional, mental and physical (it’s true!) health. If not, it might be time to rethink the people you’re spending your time with. It really matters - for your health and your happiness.
We’ll wrap it up there, but you get the picture. Let’s stop using our bodies to judge each other - in terms of health status or otherwise. It’s time we break the link we’ve been conditioned to draw between weight/size and health, and use some of these more accurate, positive indicators of health to monitor our own wellbeing, and that of the people we love.
Want to learn how to improve your health with easy, effective strategies so you can feel confident in the fact you’re supporting your wellbeing, longevity and vitality? Book a consult with me today - we’ll focus on optimising your true indicators of health, so you can live a healthier and happier life with ease.
Hey, I’m Emily
Welcome to the Journal.
I’m a registered nutritionist, passionate about helping you live a healthy lifestyle which prioritises your physical and mental health in equal measure.
