It’s happened to most of us. You walk into a doctor's appointment and the first thing they do is weigh you, and the next thing you know you’re talking about how to lose weight. But you don’t understand, you wear a medium in leggings and a small or medium in shirts (because you’re busty like me). The doctor tells you that for your height, you are too heavy; that your BMI is too high.
There’s that magical little acronym. BMI -- it means body mass index, for anyone who doesn’t know. It is calculated by taking your weight in kilograms and dividing it by your height in meters squared. The NIH (National Institute of Health) now categorizes healthy/normal and obesity based on your BMI. Well that seems to make sense, right? Yes, it does. But when you realize that BMI doesn’t take into account your body type, or bone density, or muscle mass, or breast size, or anything for that matter, except for your height and weight.
Every time my doctor writes obesity on my chart, I don’t get offended anymore. I have researched how the calculations are made and I think that the system is a tad bit skewed. If it was affecting my health, then, of course, I would be concerned, but it is not affecting my health in any adverse way.
The other thing that no one takes into consideration is that there is already enough pressure on humans from society to look a certain way. There seems to be this notion that in order to be beautiful, you need to be thin. This has enlarged our eating disorder population by millions, therefore grossly increasing the population of chronically ill people. Even being a size 8 or 10 is frowned upon nowadays. Society is slowly trying to change that by starting body positivity movements and even some companies, such as Dove, are getting involved. However, that doesn’t change the fact that even medical professionals can be guilty of body shaming because of the skewed BMI system.
According to my BMI, I need to lose about 30 pounds to get into a “normal” range. Of course, everyone is different and we all come in different shapes and sizes so why should there be a “standard” for our weight? In my book, if you look good and you feel good then that is all that should matter to you and healthcare professionals. At the weight I “should” be for my height I feel personally like I would look emaciated. To put things in perspective, at my current weight I am short, have a large bust, wear medium sizes, and anywhere from a 6-10 in pants depending on brand. I am perfectly comfortable where I am and feel that I still fit the description of skinny. So while my doctors may consider me obese for my size, I consider myself to look healthy and have come to the conclusion that if we are going to end the attack known as body shaming we should start at the source: BMI -- or as like to call it, Body Mass Insult. Next time you think you need to change yourself for a standard, I want you all to stop and think about you and what you want, not society.
