How Do I Know the Difference Between Being Overweight and Obese?

This is a very crucial question because while being overweight can have social represuccions like not finding many cute outfits to choose from nor enjoying time at the beach, being obese can have serious medical effects as well.

The best way to distinguish beteween being overweight and obese is to calculate your body mass index. It is a more meaningful number as opposed to the three digits you see on your bathroom scale. This is because it tells you if you are in the ideal range of weight in proportion to your height, age and gender.

Illustration

A 160 pound woman who is 5 feet tall can be obese, but someone weighing the same with a 6 foot frame may be doing just fine.

A BMI of 18.5 to 24.9 is considered to be healthy. Anyone with a BMI of 25-29.9 is considered to be overweight and a BMI over 30 is considered obese. A BMI of 40 or above indicates that a person is morbidly obese and it could increases risk of death manifold.

Therefore always use the BMI to distinguish if you have just packed on some pregnancy or holiday pounds or is it something more serious. Do not rely on dress sizes, jean fittings and other such estimates. There is no weight loss bible that says a size 10 is fine and a size 12 is fat. It depends a lot on your height and other factors like age and gender as well. As you grow older, the weight range which is ideal for you expands a little to accommodate for a slower metbolism. However, gettng older is no excuse for gettng fat either. Joint trouble, heart problems and other conditinons can plague you if your are old, weak and fat.

You Can Do It!

Obesity has unfortunately become one of the major killers in the United States which is ironic because we work more than any other nation, take fewer vacations and are more educated than other countries. However, we sit at our desk all day or sit in front of the televison when we return gobbling up gigantic portions of processed ready to eat foods that we just warm up in the microwave.

If we just eat a little more healthfully and move a little more, we can fight the obesity epidemic. We can turn the tables around and not be mocked upon by the size of our Big Macs and Double Grande Lattes. We need to take this as a wake up call and start incluclating healthy habits, if not for our sake, for the sake of our future generations.

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