Body composition is one of the best indicators of overall health. “It can decrease your risk for cardiovascular disease, diabetes, metabolic disease, osteoporosis, and other diseases,” explains Traci Thompson, MS, Director of PEAK Health & Wellness at the University of Utah in this article.
"Having a healthy body composition isn’t just about losing weight. Studies show that being fit is more important than how much you weigh when it comes to lowering your risk for cardiovascular disease and mortality," explains Thompson.
In addition to looking more “fit," a healthy body composition can also:
improve ability to perform day-to-day activities,
increase energy,
and help maintain cognitive function and decrease stress.
Some body fat IS essential. This fat is present in the nerve tissues, bone marrow, and organs (including all membranes). If this fat is too low, we run the risk of compromising physiological function.
Essential body fat estimates do differ between men and women.
In fact, A University of New South Wales (UNSW) research review states that “On average, women have 6 to 11 percent more body fat than men. Studies show oestrogen reduces a woman's ability to burn energy after eating, resulting in more fat being stored around the body. The likely reason is to prime women for childbearing.”
Not only are women more efficient at most everything else, we are also more efficient at fat storage.. Only kidding.. Maybe?!?
All kidding aside, Associate Professor O'Sullivan said "From an energy balance point of view there is no explanation [as to why] women should be fatter than men, particularly since men consume more calories proportionately. In fact, women burn off more fat than men during exercise, but they don't lose body fat with exercise as much suggesting women are more efficient fat storers at other times.”
This study goes on to link sex hormones, particulalry oestrogen, to the regulation of body fat and states that increased fat storage gives women an evolutionary benefit.
Now that we understand a little more about body composition and essential body fat, let’s get into the good stuff…
Yes, you read that correctly!! With a goal of overall health and of course wanting to look better or more “Fit”
The body weight scale is NOT what you should be watching!!!
A new study — which has been published in the journal BMJ Open — adds to this growing body of research amongst increasing amounts of studies questioning the usefulness and accuracy of BMI as an indicator of cardiometabolic health. Researchers from the University of Florida (UF) in Gainesville have discovered that people with a normal BMI but high body fat are more prone to prediabetes or diabetes, when compared with people shown to be overweight according to their BMI but have a lower body fat percentage.
Additionally, this study provides more support for this idea of skinny fat and shows how percent body fat is more important in identifying individuals with prediabetes than BMI.
The following is an excerpt from this article:
“With over two-thirds (71.6%) of the US adult population either overweight or obese, many strategies have been suggested for weight loss. While many are successful, the weight loss is often accompanied by a loss in lean body mass. This loss in lean body mass has multiple negative health implications. Therefore, weight loss strategies that protect lean body mass are of value.
Due to the great cost to both physical and psychological health, an abundance of clinical studies have been conducted on various interventions to improve body weight and composition. Focusing on body composition is essential because even more important than overall weight loss is sustainably losing fat mass (FM) while maintaining lean body mass (LBM). Most popular commercial weight loss programs are marketed as being able to reduce body weight within the first few weeks; however, of the weight lost, a significant amount includes losses in both LBM and FM, as well as changes in fluid status. Much of the early research utilized weight loss interventions that were designed around dietary changes that focused on calorie restriction and outcomes focused primarily on total body weight changes as opposed to body composition changes. This approach was found to be misleading and potentially detrimental to health due to the fact that substantive reductions in LBM also occurred and weight lost was often quickly regained."
References
“Diabetes: Body Fat Percentage, Not BMI, Predicts Risk.” Medical News Today, MediLexicon International, 23 Apr. 2018, www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/321567.php.
III, Arch G Mainous. “Informational Value of Percent Body Fat with Body Mass Index for the Risk of Abnormal Blood Glucose: a Nationally Representative Cross-Sectional Study.” BMJ Open, British Medical Journal Publishing Group, 1 Apr. 2018, bmjopen.bmj.com/content/8/4/e019200#block-system-main.
“Normal Ranges of Body Weight and Body Fat.” Human Kinetics, us.humankinetics.com/blogs/excerpt/normal-ranges-of-body-weight-and-body-fat.
UNSWnews. “Why Do Women Store Fat Differently from Men?” EurekAlert!, 2 Mar. 2009, www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-03/uons-wdw030209.php.
“Want to Lose Weight? Pay Attention to Body Composition.” University of Utah Health, healthcare.utah.edu/healthfeed/postings/2017/01/body-composition.php.
Willoughby, Darryn, et al. “Body Composition Changes in Weight Loss: Strategies and Supplementation for Maintaining Lean Body Mass, a Brief Review.” Nutrients, MDPI, 3 Dec. 2018, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6315740/.
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