Myths about "excess" weight
How many spears are broken around the excess weight – it would be enough for more than one Spartan army. Women are engaged in an irreconcilable struggle with him, using all the achievements of modern medicine – pills, intragastric devices, lasers, a surgeon's scalpel. And how many diets are invented – it's time to write a multi-volume "Great Dietary Encyclopedia". A whole industry has developed around weight loss, making a lot of money on the desire to lose "extra pounds".
And this topic has become overgrown with myths, like the bottom of a ship with shells. Let's just make a reservation right away – we don't mean obvious obesity. It's about weight, which fluctuates at the upper limit of the norm.
The first myth. Growth minus one hundredIn general, it is unclear who invented this formula.
And then she was happily replicated by women's glossy magazines. But all people are different. A person, as a biological species, generally has a striking individuality in everything – from the structure of the iris, which is unique for everyone, to metabolism.
The standard formulas "weight = height – 100" (for men) and "weight = height – 105 for women" are a form of mockery. Recommendations and articles based on these formulas, written as a carbon copy, do not take into account that different people have different metabolism, fat deposition follows different principles, even a cutlet eaten or a glass of kefir drunk will be used by the body in different ways.
In order to equalize all these features, back in the last century, nutritionists proposed a universal indicator called the body mass index (BMI). To calculate it, it is necessary to divide the weight in kilograms by the square of height in meters (kg/ m2).
The World Health Organization considers normal fluctuations in BMI in the range of 18.5-24.9. What does this mean? For example, for a girl with a height of 170 cm, the weight of both 53.5 kg and 71.9 kg "monstrous" by the standards of fashionable diets is equally normal. That is, even 70 kg in this situation is not at all a reason to throw out the contents of the refrigerator with cries of "horror–horror" and start starving yourself. Moreover, you can even be happy for yourself.
The second myth. The body does not need fatStill as needed.
At least as a mechanical support for some organs. For example, it's no secret that women's breasts largely consist of adipose tissue. And that when losing weight, it has an unpleasant tendency to "deflate". There are also more serious consequences of weight loss below the lower limit – our kidneys lie on a fat cushion, and if it is depleted, they begin to "walk" up and down, in medicine this condition is called "wandering kidney".
However, one pure mechanics is not enough here. Fat is extremely necessary for the synthesis of female sex hormones, and, therefore, for the stability of the monthly cycle
The third myth. Excess weight is dangerous for the heartNothing like that.
Moreover, it can also become a kind of "safety cushion" for the heart.
In 1987, a group of Finnish scientists found that in the age group from 30 to 49 years, the risk of death from myocardial infarction in people with a BMI of 26.5 – 28.5 (that is, higher than the WHO norm) is 2.75 times lower than in people of the same group, but with a normal BMI. But it is heart problems that are remembered first of all when they talk about being overweight or obese
These more than paradoxical conclusions were confirmed 20 years later by German and Swiss scientists: according to their observations, even patients with obvious obesity, who were significantly more likely to develop hypertension and diabetes, endured myocardial infarction much better than people with normal weight.
What is the reason for this? The fact is that in patients with a body weight above average, the endogenous cannabioid system is more active. These are our body's own narcotic analgesics that help us survive pain shock and other troubles. Even if the "well-fed" myocardial infarction occurred more often, it led to a fatal outcome much less often than in people with normal or underweight.
The fourth myth. You need to lose weight even through forceAnd here it is not.
Self-abuse can lead to psychological troubles. Even if it doesn't come to anorexia, chronically low mood is guaranteed.
Losing weight through "I can't" can also cause physiological changes - the failure of fine-tuning of the body. It is difficult to say exactly where and when the breakdown will occur. And the fact that it can happen is beyond doubt.
A decrease in body weight causes a decrease in immunity, respectively, the risk of "catching" an infection increases. And since the immune system is also responsible for oncological protection, the risk of developing some forms of cancer increases. Paradoxical as it may sound, but both excess weight and its deficiency are equally significant in the sense of the development of neoplasms. For example, colorectal cancer. Only in the case of obesity, the trigger mechanism may be the actual fat in the mesentery of the intestine, and in the case of a diet craze – its imbalance and reduced nutritional value. Or kidney cancer – if you are on a high-protein diet for a long time.
The fifth myth. All fat people are kind – heartedAgain, the character of a person does not depend on the height and weight parameters in any way.
It is laid in deep childhood, when the vast majority of us are thin and sonorous. And it does not change during life. And some fat people just have to be kind – because with an excess of weight, you can't catch up with the offender, well, or you can't run far from him, according to the situation.
In addition, if you carefully recall the books and movies, then a lot of villains had a belly of varying degrees of solidity, and the good guys, on the contrary, were lean, with the classic six squares on the abdominal press.
Movie and book villains, overweight:
• Karabas-Barabas ("The Adventures of Pinocchio" by Alexei Tolstoy);
• three fat men (the work of the same name by Yuri Olesha);
• Baron Harkonnen ("Dune" by Frank Herbert and films based on the book);
• Goldfinger (the work of Ian Fleming and the Bond film of the same name).
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Researchers agree on one thing: if your BMI does not exceed 25, and at the same time your well-being does not cause any complaints (confirmed by objective studies, of course), you should not follow the weight loss industry and try to squeeze your weight into far-fetched standards.
Moderation and tolerance will not hurt in relation to their own weight. Eat balanced, regularly, do not forget about physical activity, treat yourself with a fair amount of irony and optimism – and then you can safely throw out the scales. To spite all diets.
And in general, from the point of view of doctors, the most adequately related person to his weight is Carlson from Astrid Lindrgen's fairy tale and a magnificent domestic cartoon. Remember? A moderately well-fed man in the prime of life, active, mobile, cheerful and cheerful. It is such a person who has every chance to live quietly and happily the time allotted to him by nature, without getting acquainted with a bouquet of a wide variety of chronic diseases.