While being overweight is a precursor to obesity and, like obesity, can increase the risk of diabetes, heart attack and stroke, it's also possible to be overweight and still healthy, especially if you're free from chronic diseases like hypertension or diabetes.
Is it possible to be overweight and healthy? Silvana Pannain, MD: Yes, you can be overweight and metabolically healthy. At the same time, we know that obesity is a disease that affects the body in many different ways. Thirteen types of cancer and 200 other health conditions are related to obesity.
BMI score has some limitations because it measures whether a person is carrying too much weight but not too much fat. For example, people who are very muscular, like professional sportspeople, can have a high BMI without much fat. But for most people, BMI is a useful indication of whether they're a healthy weight.
Many people assume they're in good shape because their weight falls within a healthy range. Yet research suggests it's possible to carry a lot of weight and still be 100 per cent healthy, or at least free of the health risks typically associated with a lot of weight gain.
Muscle weighs more than fat, for one thing. Extremely muscular individuals could actually have BMIs that classify them as overweight or even obese.
Muscle is denser than fat, and as it is more compact within your body, as you gain muscle mass, you end up looking thinner, no matter your physical weight. So, if you've been doing a lot of strength training lately, it's likely this is the reason that you're looking fantastic but not dropping those numbers.
Muscles are denser and heavier than body fat, so if you have high muscle mass, your BMI might indicate that you're overweight or obese. BMI treats a person's weight as one entity, instead of accounting for muscles, bone density and fat, which all make up a person's weight.
A high amount of body fat can lead to weight-related diseases and other health issues. Being underweight is also a health risk. Body Mass Index (BMI) and waist circumference are screening tools to estimate weight status in relation to potential disease risk.
Some research shows that our bodies have a natural weight or 'set point' that it will return to regardless of what we eat and how much we exercise.
Body Mass Index (BMI) is a measure of body fat based on height and weight that applies to both adult men and women. BMI does not differentiate between body fat and muscle mass. Therefore, bodybuilders and people who have a lot of muscle bulk will have a high BMI but are not overweight or obese.
One gene or many? Rarely, obesity occurs in families according to a clear inheritance pattern caused by changes in a single gene. The most commonly implicated gene is MC4R, which encodes the melanocortin 4 receptor.
While they may qualify as overweight due to their large muscle mass, they are not necessarily fat. Obesity is defined as an excessively high amount of body fat or adipose tissue in relation to lean body mass. Being obese means that body fat is now beyond an accepted standard for your height.
Basically, it's an imbalance between the amount of muscle and fat you have that can make you appear fat even at your ideal weight. A skinny fat or metabolically obese normal weight (MONW) individual can have the same BMI as someone who looks ripped. Yet, the skinny fat person will still have excess fat.
That food insecurity and obesity can co-exist and are significantly associated in some studies does not necessarily mean they are causally linked to each other.
What should your waist measurement be? For men, a waist circumference below 94cm (37in) is 'low risk', 94–102cm (37-40in) is 'high risk' and more than 102cm (40in) is 'very high'. For women, below 80cm (31.5in) is low risk, 80–88cm (31.5-34.6in) is high risk and more than 88cm (34.6in) is very high.
According to the BMI, you're in a range that's considered “overweight." That begs the question: Does your weight really matter? In short, your weight (and BMI) does matter — but only as part of your overall personal evaluation.
Body Mass Index' biggest flaw is that it does not take into account the person's body fat versus muscle (lean tissue) content. Muscle weighs more than fat (it is denser, a cubic inch of muscle weighs more than a cubic inch of fat).
So the answer to the question is essentially yes, people with obesity can still be healthy. However, what this study, and prior research, shows us is that obesity even on its own carries a certain cardiovascular risk even in metabolically healthy individuals.
Athletes and heavily muscled people may have a high BMI but very little fat (Given an equal volume, muscle weighs more than fat on the scale). To prevent being misclassified based on BMI, some people prefer to have their body fat measured at the gym or their doctor's office.
The phrase 'skinny fat' or metabolically obese normal weight (MONW) is used to describe someone who appears to be lean, but actually has a high body fat percentage. If they were to calculate their body mass index (BMI) or even weigh themselves, they may appear to be healthy, but this can be deceiving.