FEBRUARY 2015
THE
HIGHLAND
VOLUME LXIV, ISSUE 4
FLING LII Am I Fat? Annie McCrone
“Look, mum. All you’ve got to do is eat less and take a bit of exercise.” “Sweetie, if it was that easy, everyone would be doing it.” These lines from the BBC series Absolutely Fabulous comically captures the essence of what it takes to be healthy. Today, however, we worry about looking thin. We worry about our body mass indexes (BMI) and our body fat and our calorie intake. Whatever happened to just staying active and eating right? Do we need all of these new measurements? There are several truths about weight in our country that surprisingly exist all at once. On the one hand, about a third of school-children and adolescents are obese. On the other hand, anorexia is the third most common chronic illness among young adults. We have a problem on both sides of the weight spectrum. What does it even mean to be healthy? In the dictionary, healthy is synonymous with fit, which isn’t much easier to define. However, The Fling learned a lot about the flaws in the way fitness, health, and obesity are measured from sound bites from doctors, New York Times articles, blogs, and health websites.
INSIDE
First, let’s get familiar with body mass index (BMI). This method of dividing one’s weight in kilograms by the square of one’s height in meters was originally developed in the 1800s by Adolphe Quetelet. In recent years, it’s been the talk of the town—the new way to measure health. The trouble is, this measurement doesn’t distinguish between fat and lean tissue. This means that it is possible to feel and look fatter even as your weight stays the same because fat takes up four times as much space as muscle tissue.
It also means that it’s not a good indication of obesity. The classic example is this: Take a 25-year-old man who is 6’ 5” and 280 pounds. Is he obese? Well, if he was your average person, the answer would be yes. But if he were an athlete? Say, a linebacker for a professional football team? He would be all muscle, and not obese. Here’s a line from a New York Times article that all athletes love to hear, “thinness is not necessarily healthy.” In fact, sometimes those with a lower BMI suffer from malnutrition, cancer, or anorexia. Sophie Gillerman ’15, an athlete, said she knows she’s fit, “I am no size 2; but if you compare leg muscle, I have something on you.” There are studies that suggest a better way to measure health and fitness is by the percentage of body fat a person has. To be in the ideal range, according to one chart, 18-year-old men should have about 10% body fat, and 18-year-old women, about 20%. As a general rule, men whose body fat is over 25% and women whose body fatbis over 35% are obese. Let’s go back to basics. Doctors say that the best way to stay in shape is to exercise. More importantly, while aerobic exercises are great—like running or dancing—it’s even more vital that you do weight training in order to build and maintain muscle. Kiara Weinstein ’15 said that while working out is important, there are fourteen and fifteen year olds “lifting weights when their bodies haven’t fully developed, and it’s not healthy.” Then there’s an obsession with calorie intake. People have this idea that fewer calories equals less fat. What’s important, however, is that it’s the kind, not the amount, of calories that affect your health. For example, chips and chocolate have calories that are not useful to the body because
they are processed too quickly. That’s why protein, like meat, is better for you. Your body can break down those calories to be used and stored. The same principle applies to carbohydrates. The dreaded “carbs” are actually very important to your body and brain, which rely on a constant supply of glucose (which comes from carbohydrates in fruits and vegetables) to function. It’s difficult to gauge the student body of Highland Park High School in terms of body image and health and fitness, because the topic can get very personal. However, it does appear that a number of students are embracing health and different body types. Sophie Gillerman commented that someone’s weight is not an indicator of their fitness level, and you can’t judge someone’s health at a glance. In some ways, it’s easier for the athletes to acknowledge different body types because they see so many fit and healthy people - like their teammates - who all look different, but are all healthy. The truth is that everybody’s body is different, and what is true for one person may not be true for another. That’s why while there are many methods of determining health and fitness on a large scale, they are essentially useless to the individual. These measurements and health fads attempt to help the individual through methods that are designed to target millions, and that can be dangerous. How many times have you picked up a magazine, a newspaper, or turned on the television to see that some company has claimed to know the secret to a fit and healthy body that is so simple anyone can do it? As it turns out, there’s an easy answer. Eat right and exercise often. You’ll be fine.
news
opinion
feature
arts
sports
Park Partners
Human Connections
Student Abroad
Podcast Culture
(p. 3)
(p. 4)
(p. 5)
(p. 7)
Coming Soon to HP: Archery (p. 10)