Living with obesity
My wife bought us a new bathroom scale, and it came with one of those body mass index charts that tells you where you fall in the range of “emaciated” to “morbidly obese.” Foolish me, I weighed myself and checked the chart.
And thus I learned that I’m obese — or at least a Twinkie away from crossing the line from merely “overweight.”
Hmm.
First of all, I certainly need to lose weight. No doubt at all, and you don’t need to point it out. But as one person commented to me, “You’re carrying a few extra pounds, but you wouldn’t call yourself fat.” (Well, Mac users did, but that was because I didn’t praise Apple enough. Another story.)
So overweight, absolutely. And let’s even say “heavy,” although I suspect that if you were describing me to someone that isn’t a word you’d use — it’s not my defining characteristic, like it is for someone like, say, John Goodman.
But obese?
Here’s a recent picture of me — it’s a year or so old and I weigh about the same now:
According to the Centers for Disease Control, the guy in that picture is grossly overweight, bordering on obese.
This gives me an entirely new perspective on the obesity “epidemic.” According to the CDC, almost one third of adults in the U.S. are obese. (Apparently, that includes me.) So maybe, just maybe, the definition of “obese” is a bit off — maybe there’s something else that needs to be taken into account besides height and weight before giving it a label.
More likely, though, I really am obese and just don’t see myself that way. I’ll think about that the next time I do a cannonball into the local pool.
(Note: If you’re gonna get nasty in the comments section, don’t bother. I’ll just delete it. Snarky is fine, but being a jerk isn’t. And you know what I mean.)
Ms. Elenaeous says:
When my 90 pound daughter received a “fat letter” from school two years ago I knew this obese crap was out of control. Throw that chart out!