Why You Should Never Believe Those Ideal Weight Charts
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The obsession with weight these days has reached a dangerously unhealthy level. On the one hand, fat shaming and the glorification of a fat-free body are enough to make anyone lose heart. And on the other hand, the sudden celebration of body fat by the media, compounded by the common consensus amongst people that fitness can take a backseat, can confuse even the best of us. Especially when it comes to what we should do as far as our bodies are concerned.
And as if all that wasn’t enough, there exist all these fad diets, special workouts, superfoods, and magic pills that have been specifically designed to help you achieve that ideal weight. It’s as if the whole world is consciously conspiring to drive you crazy!
But, no, it doesn’t even stop there! There are these so-called ‘ideal weight charts’ too, to further add to your misery. In fact, your first stint with them took place not when you became an adult, but long ago, when you were just a growing kid. Remember going to the pediatrician with your mum and being sized up against this scale? Yep, that’s what that was!
Even now the same chart, which basically portrays a measurement of height and weight, is used to determine whether you are overweight, underweight or possess an ‘ideal’ weight. However, medical experts are now lashing out against these so-called ideal weight charts, claiming that they give a wrong idea of what actually constitutes the perfect weight for a person (1).
This can be problematic as for ages, we have been told to rely on BMI or body mass index as the sole indicator for the right weight. Add to that the hullaballoo the media creates over the kind of body image one should have and you have a surefire recipe for disaster!
All of this chaos has led to a disturbing trend – eating disorders. It is now estimated that around 70 million people all over the world suffer from one or the other form of eating disorder, such as anorexia, bulimia, and the like (2). This is particularly saddening as in an attempt to achieve their ideal weight according to their BMI, people end up either under-eating or overeating.
Why Are Ideal Weight Charts No Longer Considered ‘Ideal’?
The problem with ideal weight charts, according to researchers who are responsible for deeming them inaccurate, is that they do not take into account certain variations (3). For example, the human body is composed of fat and muscles. What weight charts do is that they simply measure the height in correlation to the weight to come up with an ideal number. They never include body fat and muscle in the picture.
As a result, what happens is that a person who has a very high muscle mass and low body fat content (such as a bodybuilder) ends up as a so-called ‘obese’ person on this chart; even though there’s negligible fat content in their body!
Another problem with this chart is that it claims that the ‘ideal weight’ is entirely dependent on a person’s height, which is a gross oversimplification. Also, this weight chart pretty crudely divides women into roughly three size groups – small, medium, and large.
This is troublesome since the chart fails to define what a ‘small size’ really is in terms of measurement. What’s more, people come in plenty of shapes and sizes, which the chart fails to recognize by sticking to only 3 size categories.
Again, variations such as metabolism, activity level, bone structure, body fat percentage, and muscle level play very crucial roles in determining the right weight. The ideal weight chart does not consider these at all.
Therefore, doctors are now of the opinion that such charts do more harm than good. They create an unhealthy perception of the perfect body shape and also give rise to weight-obsession. And as mentioned before, the media and all the crazy fad diets only add fuel to the fire.
In fact, most of these diets suggest the same thing – eat one kind of food and ignore the rest. This gives rise to more trouble as human psychology works by craving the very thing it is restricted from having (4). So, for instance, if you have been asked to go on a low-carb diet, your body will start craving more carbs due to the lack of them in your system, and so on and so forth.
This is why you should never fall prey to the numbers printed on an ideal weight chart. You’ll probably only end up feeling bad about yourself even when you’re absolutely healthy. However, if you’re not in the prime of your health, doctors recommend that you take an individual approach rather than focus on what’s considered ‘right’ objectively. In the end, your health is in your own hands.
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