Do I Need to Lose Weight?

Fifty-seven percent of American adults say they would like to lose 20 pounds or more, according to “Eating Patterns in America,” a report from NPD Group. This desire for weight loss comes as no surprise. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 60 percent of Americans are overweight or obese.

So what’s your magic number on the scale for optimal health?

“There’s no such thing as an ideal weight loss goal,” says Heidi Stroessner-Johnson, M.D., a Mills-Peninsula internal medicine doctor. “It’s very individual from person to person.”

Family history, genetics, body frame, medical conditions, pregnancy, lifestyle – these are all factors that determine what the scale should read for each individual.

And some weight gain as you age can seem almost inevitable, says adult weight management director Karen Handy, of the Palo Alto Medical Foundation.  “Most Americans gain about a pound a year, starting in midlife. As we age, we lose lean muscle tissue. Since lean muscle tissue helps drive our metabolism, we began to burn fewer calories. So even if we eat the same diet, we can begin to gain weight.”

How Much Weight is Too Much?

“I don’t look at just one thing when I help my patients determine healthy weight goals,” says Dr. Stroessner-Johnson, “but a good place to start is the Body Mass Index.” A simple mathematical formula based on height and weight, the Body Mass Index (BMI) is used to measure body fat.

As a general rule, if your BMI is 18 to 25 you are in a healthy weight range. A BMI over 26 indicates you may be overweight and a BMI over 30 means you are likely obese.

Shape Matters

“Men and women with ‘apple’ shapes, who carry their weight in their mid-section, have a higher health risk than a person who is pear-shaped, carrying their weight in the thighs and buttocks,” says Dr. Stroessner-Johnson.  Excess weight in the hips and thighs is typically subcutaneous fat. Located just underneath the skin, this type of fat is what you can typically pinch. While it may cause dimpling or other unwanted cosmetic effects, subcutaneous fat does not produce disease.

Visceral fat, on the other hand, is deposited in the abdomen and surrounding vital organs. This type of fat can infiltrate the liver, heart, pancreas and muscle tissue. As the fat accumulates, it impairs the normal function of these organs, leading to disease.

Since BMI doesn’t take body shape into account, clinicians often also use waistline circumference to screen patients for possible health risks that come with excess weight.

If your waist is bigger than your hips, you’re at a higher risk for heart disease and type 2 diabetes. This risk increases with a waist size greater than 35 inches for women or 40 inches for men.

A Healthy Lifestyle

Tom Hopkins, M.D.,  an internal medicine physician with Sutter Medical Center, Sacramento, says another important factor to consider when determining your healthy weight is your lifestyle. “Fitness counts, fatness doesn’t,” he says. The most important factor is what you are doing with your body at your current weight – not the weight itself.

“If you have a BMI of 35 and are sedentary, eat fatty and sugary foods, and smoking, then I would be very concerned,” he says. “However, if you have a BMI of 35 and you eat healthy food and walk or exercise every day, that’s a different story.”

“No one dies of fatness,” says Dr. Hopkins. “They do die of health conditions that are influenced by weight. So ask yourself, ‘Is your weight limiting you? Is it slowing you down or keep you from moving?’ ” If the answer is yes, it might be time to make a change.