This Is Not Okay

Yesterday, M showed me this tweet by @SFoodie, the food blog run by SF Weekly:

This made me want to reach into the Internet and throttle the writer for: (1) poor reading comprehension skills, (2) sloppy reporting, and (3) irresponsibly handing people a "science-based" excuse for ignoring a potentially life-threatening health problem.

Let's be perfectly clear: The study referenced in the tweet DOES NOT SAY THAT BEING FAT IS HEALTHY.

The real story? Canadian researchers looked at whether people with high Body Mass Index (BMI) scores are uniformly at high risk for an early death. To test this, they looked at a bunch of people they classified as "obese" BASED ON THE SUBJECTS' BMI SCORES, ranked their health according to the Edmonton Obesity Staging System (EOSS), and compared mortality rates. A subject with an EOSS score of 0 was one who showed no problematic symptoms, while a person with a score of 4 (the highest possible score) was one with severe chronic diseases and disabilities.

The conclusion? Not all folks with high BMIs are at risk of early death.

This is not rocket science, folks. A high BMI tells you absolutely nothing about the state of a person's body composition or health. A muscle-bound person with little body fat might have a very high BMI and a flabby "skinny fat" smoker might have a "normal" one, but it doesn't mean that the former is obese any more than it means that Michael Jackson was a super-healthy fella. Body mass should not be mistaken for body fat. And while the researchers (unfortunately) used "high BMI" interchangeably with "obesity," let's be real: When most people think about obesity, the dictionary definition comes to mind -- and it's all about "excessive accumulation and storage of fat in the body."

Take elite CrossFit firebreather Rob Orlando. His BMI is above 29, which puts him in borderline "obese" territory. But does he look fat to you? Would you use the word "obese" to describe him?



Let's face it: BMIs are completely useless as an indicator of health. And in fact, this is precisely what the Canadian researchers were seeking to show. As a recent CNN article pointed out, "[t]he main question was whether BMI alone could determine who dies early, said Dr. Arya Sharma, the lead author [of the study]." Unsurprisingly, the answer was "no." (Duh.)

You wouldn't know it from the articles written about the study, though. SF Weekly's article, for example, looks like this:

That's right: "[Y]ou can have your cake, eat it, and, um, have some more."

And this wasn't an outlier. Other "respectable" publications wrote headlines like:

• "Being Obese Not Necessarily Bad" (Toronto Sun)

• "Obese And Healthy: Not All Overweight People Need To Worry" (The Huffington Post)

• "Study: It's Okay to be Fat" (Voice of America)

• "Study: Obese People Live as Long as Slimmer People" (WebMD).

• "Obesity Police Busted? Study Says Fat Folks Can Be Healthy"(CBS News)

Similarly, Facebook and Twitter lit up with further distortions of the study's conclusions:

No one's going to spend even a minute on Google to track down the original study. They're not going to hear that BMIs are bunk. But they will take away the message that "being fat can be GOOD for you" -- so why worry?



P.S.: WTF, Barry Sears?

The Secret to a Happy Marriage?

Guys: If you're not bigger than your wife, it may be time to start a mass gain program.

According to a new study by the University of Tennessee, married couples are happier when the wives have a lower body mass index (BMI) than their husbands.

[The researchers] tracked the marital happiness of 169 newlywed couples. The couples indicated their height and weight and then independently and privately completed marital satisfaction questionnaires every six months for four years.

Controlling for factors such as depression, income level, and education, the study found that husbands were initially more satisfied in their marriages if their wives had lower body mass indexes (BMIs) than their own and initially less satisfied if their wives had higher BMIs than their own. Wives were more satisfied over time if they had lower BMIs than their husbands and less satisfied over time if they had higher BMIs than their husbands.

The researchers stress that women don't have to be stick-thin: "It's relative weight that matters, not absolute weight," said Andrea Meltzer, the lead author of the study. "It's not that they have to be small." They just have to be smaller than their husbands.

This TOTALLY explains The King of Queens.

[Source]

DEXA Body Fat Scan

We all know that BMI (Body Mass Index) is altogether unreliable as an indicator of health. It's junk science, and it doesn't tell us anything about body composition. There are plenty of better ways to measure body composition, and in Tim Ferriss' "The 4-Hour Body," he discusses a bunch of 'em -- some of which are much less accurate than others. Calipers and measuring tape only get you so far. And do you accept as gospel truth what the bio-electrical impedance bodyfat scale in your bathroom tells you? 'Cause you shouldn't.

Ferriss examined nine different methods of body composition testing, and "[a]fter dozens of trials with multiple subjects, and taking into account both constancy and convenience (including cost), there were three clear winners." The first of the three: DEXA (dual energy X-ray absorptiometry) -- the "gold standard" of body composition testing. DEXA is a full-body scan typically used to measure bone density, but it's also capable of pinpointing body fat percentage and location. In a nutshell, you plop down on a table, fully-clothed, and a movable electronic scanner X-rays your body from head to toe. It takes less than ten minutes, and you get a keepsake photo of your lumpy silhouette (think airport security pornoscan shots) showing all the fleshy parts you'd prefer to conceal with Spanx and oversized football jerseys. Fun!

Bonus: The unassuming little medical office where Ferriss gets his DEXA scans is just a few freeway exits from my home.

So for kicks, both M and I decided to give this DEXA thing a shot. This afternoon, after shelling out $65 and filling out some simple paperwork, I found myself lying on some crinkly paper, staring at the ceiling while a softly-whirring mechanical arm performed low-dose X-ray scans of my body. It took no time at all. Before I left, the friendly technician spent a few minutes going over my DEXA measurements with me.

Check me out. (Nice lungs, right?)

I'd gained about ten pounds over the past six months, so I figured my body fat percentage had gone up, too. But I'm happy (and more than a little shocked) that my low body fat level puts me in the 1st percentile for my age, meaning I'm leaner than 99 percent of other men in their mid-thirties.

Despite switching to a Paleo diet and adopting a 3-days-a-week CrossFit schedule (i.e., eating loads of saturated fat and exercising less frequently), I've maintained a sub-10 percent body fat percentage. The weight gain, it seems, is largely muscle.

I don't know if it's due to eating Paleo, lifting heavy stuff and doing short metcons a few times a week, intermittent fasting, or a combination of the above, but something seems to be working.

Skinny-Fat?

Not surprisingly, even if your BMI's fine and you look skinny, you could be "normal weight obese." Mayo Clinic researchers report that "fat in your body can get you and your heart into trouble even if you don't look fat and if the scale tells you you're healthy."

In a study that looked at data from 6,171 Americans with normal body size, as measured by body mass index, those with a high percentage of body fat were at significantly greater risk of future heart problems than those with low amounts of fat. Their bodies "behave like they are obese, but they are not," Dr. Lopez-Jimenez says.

The natural reaction is to get one's body composition tested, despite the fact that "there isn't a consensus among medical experts about what percentage of body fat is 'normal' or what level indicates higher risk."

Some gyms have their own guidelines. At Equinox Fitness Club, trainers consider body composition and waist circumference—another indicator of body fat—more important in assessing fitness of many members than weight. The club's Ms. Coopersmith says that, based on data from the American College of Sports Medicine and the American Council on Exercise, Equinox considers body fat percentages between 25% and 31% for women, and 18% to 26% for men, as "acceptable." Women with body fat of 21% to 24%, and men with 14% to 17%, are "fit." People who reach even lower levels of body fat are considered "athletic," she says.

Still, the lesson's clear: Lose fat and gain lean muscle. And don't envy the skinny guy/gal in the next cubicle -- there's a good chance s/he's in worse shape than you.