What is a Healthy Weight?
What do you think about when considering a “healthy weight” for yourself? Some people visualize themselves in peak athletic performance and others imagine fitting into a certain pair of jeans, while some people see healthy weight as a way to prevent or manage conditions such as diabetes or high blood pressure. The truth is that a healthy weight can be different for everyone. Understanding the science behind weight loss and weight gain can help you determine, reach, and maintain your own personal healthy weight goals.
Understanding Body Mass Index (BMI)
Body mass index, usually referred to as BMI, is one method of determining healthy weight ranges. This method is frequently used in the medical community and your doctor may use a BMI chart to classify your weight as underweight, healthy or obese, but BMI does not give the full picture of health for everyone. For example, bodybuilders and other athletes with lots of muscle mass may technically have a high BMI. However, it is a useful screening tool that can generally assess body fat ratios for most people. A BMI calculator can be a starting point to determining if your weight is in a healthy range or if you may have obesity.
What is Obesity?
Obesity is the medical term for excessive body fat. Typically diagnosed using BMI, obesity takes height and weight into consideration in order to determine if the amount of body fat a person has may be unhealthy. Approximately 40% of American adults are affected by obesity.1
Learn More About Understanding Obesity
How Your Weight Affects Your Health
While people who try to lose weight may do so to achieve a certain appearance, others are concerned about the way excess weight can affect their health. Studies show that excess weight can increase your risk of certain life-threatening diseases, including:2,3,4
- Type 2 Diabetes
- Cancer
- High Blood Pressure
- Heart Disease
- Sleep Apnea
- Infertility
Learn About Obesity Health Risks
Think Beyond The Scale
Your weight is an important factor in your overall health, but it is just one piece of the bigger picture. The same body weight can be healthy for one person and unhealthy for another person depending on a variety of factors, including height, muscle mass, body shape, lifestyle, and more. Some things you should consider beyond the number on the scale include:
Waist Circumference
Researchers have found that the way body fat is distributed can have a significant impact on how your weight affects your health.5 Experts advise that a waist measurement of 35 inches or more for women and 40 inches or more for men may signal a higher risk for diabetes or heart disease.6 To check your waist measurement, use a soft tape measure around your abdomen, above your hip bones.
The Foods You Regularly Eat
We all know that veggies are nutritious, but the fact is that fewer than 10% of Americans eat the daily recommended amount of fruits and vegetables.7 If you are not getting fresh veggies and lean proteins in most meals and instead turn to processed foods, sugary snacks, fatty meats, and simple carbs throughout the day (think cereal, granola bars, burgers, and chips) then you may be stuck in a cycle of less-than-nutritious eating that can lead to unhealthy body fat.
Activity and Energy Levels
Do you wake up well-rested and feel like you have enough energy throughout the day to accomplish everything you’d like to do? People at a healthy weight usually feel energetic and able to get through the day without drinking extra coffee or taking naps. Excess weight can be a risk factor for sleep disorders and clinical studies show that individuals with obesity suffer from more daytime sleepiness.8
Find, Reach, and Maintain Your Healthy Weight
Body weight and health are dynamic and there is no quick fix to reaching your ideal weight.
Exercise and calorie intake have a significant impact on weight, but many people are not able to reach a healthy weight even when they eat well and stay active. When diet and exercise don’t work, help from an experienced and qualified medical professional can provide a solution.
If you struggle to maintain a healthy weight, a medically supervised weight loss plan, a non-surgical weight loss procedure, or bariatric surgery can give you the support you need to reach your goals. Procedures such as gastric sleeve or gastric bypass are not an “easy way out,” but rather a well-established tool that has been proven to reduce or eliminate diseases such as Type 2 diabetes.
1 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). National Center for Health Statistics Data Brief No. 288. Available: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db288.pdf Accessed October 12, 2020.
2 Barnes AS. The epidemic of obesity and diabetes: trends and treatments. Tex Heart Inst J. 2011;38(2):142-144.
3 National Cancer Institute. Obesity and Cancer. Available: https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-prevention/risk/obesity/obesity-fact-sheet Accessed October 12, 2020.
4 Dağ ZÖ, Dilbaz B. Impact of obesity on infertility in women. J Turk Ger Gynecol Assoc. 2015;16(2):111-117. Published 2015 Jun 1. doi:10.5152/jtgga.2015.15232
5 Ross, R., Neeland, I.J., Yamashita, S. et al. Waist circumference as a vital sign in clinical practice: a Consensus Statement from the IAS and ICCR Working Group on Visceral Obesity. Nat Rev Endocrinol
6 National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. Assessing Your Weight and Health Risk. https://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/educational/lose_wt/risk.htm Accessed October 12, 2020.
7 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Only 1 in 10 Adults Get Enough Fruits or Vegetables. https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2017/p1116-fruit-vegetable-consumption.html# Accessed October 12, 2020.
8 Julio Fernandez-Mendoza, PhD, Alexandros N. Vgontzas, MD, Ilia Kritikou, MD, Susan L. Calhoun, PhD, Duanping Liao, MD, PhD, Edward O. Bixler, PhD, Natural History of Excessive Daytime Sleepiness: Role of Obesity, Weight Loss, Depression, and Sleep Propensity, Sleep, Volume 38, Issue 3, 1 March 2015, Pages 351–360, https://doi.org/10.5665/sleep.4488
9 Pournaras DJ, Osborne A, Hawkins SC, Vincent RP, Mahon D, Ewings P, Ghatei MA, Bloom SR, Welbourn R, le Roux CW. Remission of type 2 diabetes after gastric bypass and banding: mechanisms and 2 year outcomes. Ann Surg. 2010 Dec;252(6):966-71. doi: 10.1097/SLA.0b013e3181efc49a. PMID: 21107106.
The TLC Surgery Doctors have either authored or reviewed and approved this content.