Overated and Outdated
Posted on 05. Mar, 2010 by Guy Edwards in Health Psychology, Nutrition & Lifestyle
Stepping on the scales is over rated, outdated and “over weighted.” It does not matter how much you weigh, rather, it is your body composition ratio that matters. Taking body composition into consideration, by determining fat and muscle mass is a useful assessment for determining how healthy and in “shape” you really are.
Assessing your percentage of body fat in proportion to muscle mass, as well as testing hydration status and cellular health markers are baseline tests that all health care practitioners should evaluate in their practice. Testing and re-testing also helps to encourages you to stay motivated with your health programme as these assessments can show you that your programme is “working”.
Many practitioners continue to use the outdated weight scale as a measurement of “healthy” or “unhealthy” patients. In addition, health care professionals have used height versus weight scales (body mass indicators, or BMIs) for years to determine overall health. However, these are not always suitably informative because they fail to determine if someone has elevated fat or muscle mass levels.
Scales do not differentiate between muscle and fat. Lean mass is simply your muscles, bones, connective tissue and organs. The remainder falls into the fat category. You do require a percentage of fat to function, but that consists of only a small percentage of your total body weight.
There have been studies that have indicated that college-level football/rugby players are overweight and based on that marker alone are then thought to have poor health. In reality, this is far from the truth. If these athletes were measured in terms of body composition, we would see that they have a larger percentage of lean muscle mass to fat, which is the healthiest ratio marker.
Quite often people assume that people who are thin are healthier. Again, this is another myth that has to be dispelled. Your seemingly healthy weight friend may in fact be a “skinny-fat person”. Meaning people who are thin may actually have higher fat to lean muscle mass ratio making them “fat.” Strange I know, but studies have shown that skinny is not necessarily healthy, especially if there is a high level 
of fat around the organs.
Starvation studies have indicated that parallel losses of lean mass and fatty tissue left subjects with the same percentage of body fat after weeks of starvation. In addition, our metabolic rates diminish as we reduce our percentage of lean mass. Our bodies require far more energy to move lean mass than to move fat. Remember, fatty tissue is an energy source and does not require energy to move. If we have a larger percentage of muscle mass, not only is it easier to move, but we also require more energy to do it. This is why exercise is so important in maintaining a healthy body type.
Measuring your body composition will give you a powerful tool to calculate your baseline general health and allow you and your health coach to set clear goals for exercise and nutrition, encouraging you to follow a programme that will not only decrease fat percentage, but increase muscle mass and health and vitality.
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