Ladies,
I know I've been remiss in posting lately but I've been searching for inspiration, motivation, anything to break me out of my rut and get me excited about taking care of myself again. I came across an article discussing the effects of increasing obesity on health and found it helpful - I hope some of you find it as fascinating as I did.
A couple of caveats:
First, this was originally a comprehensive chart which did not translate well to HTML so I changed it a little; namely, I took out the men and color coded the categories.
Second, the numbers (as I was stunned to learn) represent the number of times more likely that a person in that BMI category is to develop a given medical condition than a normal weight person. With this thought in mind, I was stunned.
Third, I've talked about BMI some before and I think everyone is pretty familiar with it here, but if you're not, here goes. A "normal" BMI (not overweight) is 25.0 or under. The "warning zone" (overweight but not obese) is from 25.0 to 29.9. Obesity begins at 30.0 and goes all the way up (yikes!). To get your BMI, take your weight in pounds, divide it by your height in inches, divide it by your height in inches again, and then multiply by 704.5.
Anyway, I found this interesting (and scary as heck) and hope it may add one more reason to the list of why what we're doing is so important...
Love you all,
Lisa
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FACT FILE: High body mass and its health risks
Women's relative risk* of developing various medical conditions by body mass index
BMI of 30.0 to 34.9
BMI greater than or equal to 40
MEDICAL CONDITION
Type 2 diabetes
7.24
19.89
Coronary heart disease
12.56
19.22
High blood pressure
47.95
63.16
Osteoarthritis
9.94
17.19
TYPES OF CANCER
Breast
1.63
1.70
Colon
1.33
1.36
Kidney
1.66
1.70**
Liver
1.40
1.68
* Relative risk of 2 indicates a person is twice as likely to develop condition as a person with a normal body mass index (18.5 to 24.9). A body mass index of 30.0 or higher is considered obese.
** Relative risk of developing kidney cancer rises to 4.75 in women with BMI greater than or equal to 40.
SOURCES: American Obesity Association; American Cancer Society; New England Journal of Medicine
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3 comments:
Very interesting! Thanks for posting.
Yowza, those numbers speak volumes.
Thanks for posting it Lisa.
Lisa, I was almost at a 40 bmi and now I am under 28! I know that this has so improved my future outlook for health! I think we get distracted with "how do I look" and forget about the whole disease war. What is really the most important? For me, I hope to live a long, long, healthy and abundant life.
Jules
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