Gauging Body Mass Index in a Changing Body
- From: "Bob (this one)" <Bob@xxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2005 12:37:39 -0400
Gauging Body Mass Index in a Changing Body
By GINA KOLATA Published: June 28, 2005
Consider this example: A woman's weight has not changed over the years but osteoporosis has robbed her of inches in height.
Because of her compressed spine, she is thick around the middle and her abdomen protrudes. But her arms are thin.
Is she fat? Should she lose weight? Which height should she use in deciding her ideal weight - her original height or her new one?
[SNIP]
On one side are experts like Dr. Claude Bouchard, an obesity researcher who directs the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, La.
"My first reaction is you use your current height," he said.
But, he added, in the elderly, if health is the concern, older people should not be too worried about their weight. *Among older people, he said, "The impact of excess weight on mortality and morbidity is not very strong."*
In the other camp is Dr. Jules Hirsch, an obesity researcher at Rockefeller University. Hearing that other experts had concluded that the woman should use her current height, he said, "They are wrong."
"She has an orthopedic peculiarity," Dr. Hirsch said, and even though the woman's spine is compressed or hunched, "her fat mass is exactly the same."
*"Probably what the poor soul needs is as much fat as she can get," he said.*
Aromatase, an enzyme in fat, can produce estrogen from androgens. And since estrogen helps prevent bone loss, the woman should try to keep her fat, Dr. Hirsch said. She should be "making every tad of estrogen she can make," he added.
The whole article can be found at: <http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/28/health/28bmi.html?oref=login> .
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