Apr 27, 2006

Defining Obesity

Posted in Health at 7:42 am by David Bradley -- 1 Comment

Following on from Wednesday’s posting on the subject of an obesity stifling pill, health professionals have been told that they need to use more than tape measures and scales to define and tackle obesity. The claim appears in the British Journal of Advanced Nursing.

Maryanne Davidson of Yale University discovered that many women fail to make the link between high weight and poor health and that culture is to blame, playing a key role in how positively they see themselves. Davidson reviewed key papers published over a 10-year period to see how health professionals and black and white American women define obesity and to identify differences in attitudes.

The study revealed that while health professionals used quantitative methods, such as Body Mass Index (BMI) measurements based on the height to weight ratio, women are more likely to base their ideal weight on cultural criteria. “My review revealed that black American participants defined obesity in positive terms, relating it to attractiveness, sexual desirability, body image, strength or goodness, self esteem and social acceptability,” Davidson says, “In addition they didn’t view obesity as cause for concern when it came to their health.”

White Americans, on the other hand, expressed completely the opposite view: “They defined obesity in negative terms, describing it as unattractive, not socially desirable, associated with negative body image and decreased self-esteem and being socially unacceptable,” explains Davidson. Worryingly, she adds, “when it came to the links between body weight and health, this group was much more likely to voice mixed views, with some expressing concern and others feeling that weight wasn’t a health issue.”

From the clinical care perspective, Davidson has also discovered that there are variations in how health professionals define obesity. “Although most of them use BMI to actually measure obesity, we found different views about what level of BMI constitutes normal weight and what level indicates obesity,” she says. Such findings provide a real challenge for healthcare professions.

People have been obsessed with their weight since records began, Davidson adds. She points out that the “Spartans” reportedly ostracised a man for being too fat and Socrates danced every day to keep his weight within reason! Such apocryphal tales tell us nothing about the health implications of being overweight today.

“Obesity is a major issue for health professionals as it is emerging as a worldwide healthcare epidemic,” says Davidson, “The World Health Organization estimates that there are at least 300 million obese people worldwide and a further one billion who are overweight.”

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