BMI: Badly Misshapen Information

Today I want to discuss something a little bit different than all the fitness-running-hype material I usually talk about: body mass index and my relationship with the scale. Last night while staffing our rowing team’s recruitment table in our college’s student center, my teammates and I began joking around about the body-labeling scale we all know and love [read: do not love at all, hate]: body mass index, or BMI. You know you’ve seen, and probably loathed, it before. The formula takes into account only three variables (sex, height, and weight) and then calculates a number that describes your body composition as “underweight,” “normal weight,” “overweight,” or “obese.” My first question, of course, is why we need to categorize our bodies like this at all. I understand that being especially far under or over the ideal weight for your body type and size can lead to health complications. Within a healthy range, however, I see no need to classify ourselves according to these labels – especially because BMI is largely irrelevant.

 To be clear, I am not a professional, or even a science, let alone kinesiology, major. In fact, I haven’t even taken one single class in those departments. I’m just here to share my views from the perspective of an average person, someone like you. To that end, what I don’t like about the body mass index formula is that it generalizes from some idea of “normal” body composition, meaning that, for example, if you work out more than the “average,” “normal” person, the formula doesn’t account for increased weight due to muscle mass. It also doesn’t account for different body types and natural weight holdings, bone density, etc. I’m sure BMI data can be useful for doctors or professionals in some circumstances, but it can also be really daunting, especially for people who struggle with low body image or feel that their body type doesn’t conform to the perceived normalcy that BMI expects. I can’t speak for anyone else, but I can tell you about my personal experience, which is one that I’ve heard many people echo.

 Not once in my life has my body been what one might call “skinny.” And, to be fair, I haven’t always been athletic – that is to say, it’s not as though my muscles are totally to blame for pushing me over the precipice of the “normal” weight section and into the category of “overweight.” For as long as I can remember, I’ve been confined to this classification. In middle and high school, I dreaded going to my yearly checkup for fear of my doctor pointing up at the color-coded chart on his cabinet door and reminding me that I was not in the green section, but the yellow one. Like a stoplight, that color told me to take caution. To be careful with what I eat, to increase the amount that I exercise, to “watch the snacking.” On one hand, these are probably useful pieces of advice for anyone, and now things that I enjoy doing [except for the limited snacking part]. But that doesn’t mean that I needed, around the age of fourteen, to hear them, coming at me like darts to poke holes in my fledgling self-confidence. Being placed in the yellow zone, the cautionary zone, sent me the message that there was something wrong with my body, something that I needed to change. Looking back on it, I know that wasn’t true.

 In high school, I did make some changes. I started working out at a gym: I began lifting lightly and doing cardio on my own time – and I enjoyed it! I tried to eat healthier. My parents have always eaten and usually cooked healthy options for us, which I remain grateful for [even more so when I’m on campus and subject to lots of college dining hall food!]. I responded to my doctor labeling me “overweight” by pursuing more exercise and being more careful about my food intake. I tried crash diets – ten day juice cleanses where I lost ten pounds of water weight and then immediately gained it back when I binge-ate mozzarella sticks as soon as I allowed myself to eat solid food again [anyone who’s tried a juice cleanse knows this is a fact]. I did my own variation of a keto diet, where I limited myself to sixty carbs a day for the two weeks before I went to prom my sophomore year.

 Once I took up exercising, however, my body couldn’t handle that kind of deprivation. I felt fatigued and sluggish at the gym, like I couldn’t lift as much or use the elliptical for as long, like all my fitness progress was swirling down the drain. I’m sure there are healthy ways to take on extreme diets like the ones I was attempting, but I was not doing them smartly. Since reaching my adult height [let’s be honest, I haven’t grown an inch since eighth grade], I’ve never weighed less than I did my sophomore year of high school. I’ve also never been so miserable or so hungry. And guess what? After all that effort, I was still in the “overweight” zone of the BMI chart.

 I had to learn to accept my body and the fact that I did not – and still do not – conform to the “normal” prescribed by the BMI chart. To illustrate that process, here’s a somewhat similar story: in middle school [okay fine, fifth grade] when I first started getting boobs, I hated them with a burning passion. Nobody else had them yet, and I was going to do whatever I could to keep them hidden, because I didn’t want to be different. I just wanted to fit in. I felt that same way about my body, which similarly occupies a size slightly larger than “normal,” but not one that’s bad or unhealthy. Especially in a society where we normalize [and glorify] images and body types that many would argue are a lot smaller than the average [see: most models], seeking this false “normal” can be extremely destructive. This is not to say that thinner women have the “wrong” body type either—all bodies are beautiful, all bodies are right. My point is only that, as a whole, our society and media tends to celebrate thinner rather than thicker bodies, creating an ideal unattainable for most and catastrophic for many.

 Okay, back to boobs. Obviously at twenty I’ve come to realize that the very feature I abhorred for too many years can be a great asset. For the most part, we’ve moved past this idea of “normal” in terms of breasts. Small boobs? Awesome! Big boobs? Great! There’s no chart in my gynecologist’s office categorizing breasts negatively by size. Why can’t we get past the plight for normalcy in terms of the rest of our bodies?

 In the three years since high school, I’ve learned to appreciate my body type. I’m twenty pounds heavier than I was at fifteen, and it’s a comfortable twenty pounds. I’m also over fifteen pounds less than I weighed eight months ago. My weight goes up and down, down and up. Some days I eat Chinese takeout. Some days I eat salad. All of the days I feel good about myself. Yep, I’m still in the “overweight” category, and I’m okay with that. It’s clear to me that my body was not built to be lean or lithe or slim. Instead, it was built to be powerful. I’ve never had a flat stomach or a thigh gap—some people do, some people don’t. I probably never will [it doesn’t help that I’ve eaten half a bag of pretzels while writing this post], and that is okay. I love many things about my body. I’m grateful for my legs that propel me through my runs. I’m grateful for my arms that handle my oar when I row. I’m grateful for my curves.

 I do still weigh myself, although I don’t pay any attention to what the BMI chart tells me about my body anymore. I know that, for some people, cutting out the scale entirely can be a really positive change – and I’m working towards that. For now though, I feel somewhat anxious not knowing my weight, and I like to keep tabs on it to see how my body responds to different types of exercise or food. Not as a comparison to other people or some sort of “normal” ideal, just as a comparison to myself week-to-week. In time, I hope that I can get over this anxiety and experience a more natural form of self-regulation. All this to say that even though I’ve conquered the BMI monster, I’m still a work in progress—everybody is.

 If you worry a lot about your weight or think that you need to change it, I challenge you today to ask yourself why. I challenge you to set fitness goals rather than weight-loss goals. Think “I want to go to the gym four times a week” or “I want to train for a half marathon” rather than “I want to lose ten pounds.” These things might have the same effect, but what’s important is how you think about them, and how you can learn to appreciate your body for its power and ability rather than fighting against its natural weight.

 So, in the eternal words of Justin Bieber: Oh baby you should go and love yourself.

Happy Thursday everyone!