Are You Dying to Lose Weight?

In the US alone, the weight loss industry is worth an estimated $50 billion – that’s 50 times the amount of money the United Nations spends on hunger and famine relief around the world and more than the gross national product of many countries. Sales of retail and multi-level meal replacements and appetite suppressants alone are around $2 billion a year.

One survey found 62 percent of adults are dieting and 18 percent are constantly on a diet. And in spite of all this effort, and these weight loss products, health club memberships, diet pills and potions, tummy tucks and stomach staplings, books and tapes, the number of people declared to be obese is increasing.

The National Institutes of Health and other studies show that 98 percent of people who lose weight gain it back within five years. And 90 percent of those gain back more weight than they lost. The failure of weight loss programs is so great that a leading researcher has said, “Dieting is the leading cause of obesity in the US.”

It could also be dangerous to your health, as an increasing number of health dangers are being associated with use of diet drugs (the now withdrawn combination of phentermine and fenfluramine “phenfen” – and the even more controversial use of phentermine and prozac being two examples). Yet hungry for the profits resulting from a prosperous but aging population wanting to look young and svelte, the diet industry continues to introduce new products daily. 

The main – but relatively crude – method of measuring body fat is the Body-Mass Index, developed by US government researchers in the 1980s to relate a person’s weight to their height. To calculate your BMI, divide your weight in kilograms by the square of your height in meters (kg/m2). For example, if you are 1.78 meters tall (5’10") and you weigh 90 kilograms (198 lbs), your BMI is roughly 28. Your weight falls in the overweight zone. 

An index of 25 or more is the cutoff point between normal and overweight (it was recently revised downwards from 27). On the BMI scale, a woman 5 feet, 6 inches tall who weighs 160 pounds would have an index of 26, which some experts consider overweight. At 185 pounds, she would have an index of 30 and would be considered obese. A 5-foot-9 man who weighs 175 pounds would have an index of 26, which some experts would say is overweight. At 200 pounds, he would have a BMI of 30 and be considered obese. 

The average American woman has a BMI of 26; fashion models typically have BMIs of 18. Nation-wide, 47.9 per cent of Canadians have a body-mass index of 25 or more. Almost 15 per cent of them are obese, with a BMI exceeding 30. 

However, the BMI is controversial because it doesn’t allow for the weight of muscle mass. For instance, many professional athletes like football and baseball players have high BMI ratings, but one doesn’t get to be a pro ball player by being a fat slob couch potato.

Another common way to determine what you “should” weigh is to consult a standard height/weight table. One trouble with these tables is that they take no account of many factors that affect weight, such as family history, race, or age for instance. At age 50, even the trim and muscular weigh more than they did at twenty-five, and there is some evidence that modest weight gain between age twenty-five and sixty-five is healthy. The charts are based on a statistical report created by Metropolitan Insurance in 1959 and only slightly revised in 1979. The research was not based on medical studies, mostly included white males, and was economically biased. 

So the term “overweight” is actually pretty subjective. One recent study found that 64 percent of Americans weigh more than the charts suggest, and another 14 percent weigh “underweight” according to the charts. That’s 78 percent of the population who don’t fit the charts!

In reality, there is a growing body of research that shows our natural weight range is determined by genetics. Twins separated at birth and raised in different environments were within a few pounds of each other’s weight. More than a dozen studies have tried and failed to show that fat people eat more or differently than thin people. Some even showed that fat people ate less than their thin counterparts. 

One of the biggest problems with weight loss programs is that they assume that weight loss and gain are controlled by the stomach. Our metabolism is controlled, like most of our bodily functions, by the part of the brain called the hypothalamus. We call this the set-point. Like a thermostat, our weight varies slightly with environmental factors such as temperature, food quantity, food choices, exercise. Yet, this accounts for only about 10 to 15 percent of a person’s weight range. So a person’s weight may fluctuate naturally by 10 to 20 pounds.