Need to lose weight?

Sure I say and click on the ad to see how much weight I could stand to lose. I am taken to a diet site where I am asked for all sorts of personal information, weight and non-weight related. I log in as Anna Rexic and give my last known weight of 117 lbs and my approximate height of 5'5". I see that the Body Mass Index "calculator" on the screen has a field for my goal weight. I type in 100 lbs. There is also a field for time frame. Anna's in a hurry, so I choose the shortest options, one month or less. In the space where I can indicate the event I'd like to lose this weight for, I select "wedding". I've heard non-obese people talk about losing weight. E.g., at T's family's house, any gathering that involved female guests necessarily entailed a lengthy kitchen table discussion about weight gain and loss. My choices for Anna's diet profile seem to be in line with the goals stated in those settings.

What is my "diet profile"?
According to EDiets, Anna Rexic's BMI is 20 which is "...Within the normal range of weight for your height". There is a little red box with an exclamation point in it alerting me that "Weight is not always the true indication of your fitness. The BMI represents a range of healthy weight for your height. Your ediets plan will help you fuel your engine and get you to your goal weight without compromising your energy or good nutrition." Towards the end of attaining my goal weight without compromising good nutrition, the website lists daily calorie limits for the goal of a 17 lbs in one month loss (1200 to 1300 calories).

Anna Rexic indeed!
In fact, Anna's (and my) BMI is 19.5 based on the BMI calculators on non-diet selling, non commercial sites (like the CDC). According to the CDC site calculator, Anna's weight loss goal takes her from the low end of normal/healthy to a BMI of 16.6. 16.6 is severely underweight. There is nothing in Anna's output on the EDiet site that indicates this though. I figure a little alert saying "whoa there lady....with a BMI of 20 or less, you need to GAIN some weight" with an ad for cheesecake might be appropriate.

According to the American Heart Association, an appropriate daily calorie intake for someone of my weight with a low activity lifestyle is around 1500, meaning that since Anna and I (weighing in at 117) are already at the low end of normal, there is no way a daily calorie intake of 1200 is going to allow us to not compromise our "energy and good nutrition". The calorie intake designed to shed pounds off an already skinny person cannot possibly allow for good nutritional status. In fact, it seems it's not just daily energy levels that would be compromised with a diet which promises a BMI of 16.6 as the outcome. Dieting like that is life threatening.

According to the National Center for Health Statistics, being underweight may present greater long term health risks than being overweight. While obesity (BMI greater or = to 30) had the highest mortality, being underweight was associated with greater "excess mortality" than being overweight. That's right. It seems you'd be healthier to have a few spare pounds on you than to be some bag o' skin and bones. One risk factor involved in the kind of malnutrition that results from dieting when you do not need to is associated with low triglyceride levels. We all want to have low triglycerides and low "bad" cholesterol. You type triglycerides into a google search and you'll find all sorts of info on how to reduce your levels. However, extremely low levels are associated with a much greater risk of death or severe debilitation from a stroke.

I spent a large part of my life underweight. I was one of those kids who couldn't put on weight to save my life. It turned out I was lactose intolerant at a young age, and so all the efforts to bulk up (Drink shakes! Have snacks (with milk of course)) only exaccerbated the malabsorption I was experiencing. I have almost always had a wonderful appetite though, thank god, and regardless of my weight, I enjoy cooking and eating. As an adult, I have been mostly "thin" but not underweight. This past year though something changed. I was losing weight rather quickly despite eating my usual amounts of food. My weight stabilized in June and now I think I'm putting weight back on (I don't own a scale and haven't stopped by the infirmary to "weigh in" since my clothes started fitting without safety pins at the waist). I suspect that it's just really bad IBS and that when I am not in school and teaching, I can arrange my schedule to accomodate my body better. Hence, the food stays in long enough to be absorbed.

While I was losing weight, I was cold, tired, and somewhat moody all the time. Severeal people remarked on my looking unwell. I would try to give them a short and polite version of what was up if they asked, which went something like "Oh, um....I can't keep weight on right now....Sure, I'm eating, believe me.....No, my doctor doesn't know yet...but I'm sure we'll figure it out soon". One thing I found really disturbing was that people I respected actually said things like "boy I wish I could lose weight like that!" even after being told I was sick. By their own observations, I looked like shit, and yet my friends and colleagues (who looked to be of a healthy weight) voiced the sentiment that they would give anything to have my "problem". This drove home just how pathologically we as a culture view weight.

If you want to diet, please choose one responsibly. Your doctor can refer you to a nutritionist or can help you come up with a meal plan that is not dangerous. Or you can look for diet/meal plans through a medically affiliated website, such as the American Heart Association. Don't be taken in by the fads, and remember that a healthy weight or fit body is not a social or cosmetic state. It is a physiological one that comes from adequate absorption and balancing your nutritional preferences and needs with your lifestyle.

A short update - I returned to the diet site (it remembered Anna's profile after I cleared my history, location bar, cache (by hand) , and ran two different spyware programs. That's freaky) to see what happened if I put in a weight that was lower to start with. I tried 115 lbs to start with a goal weight of 100. At that one, it told me that I was within normal range and that I should go back and set an "appropriate" goal weight (between 114 and 129 I believe). It did not say "you don't need to lose weight". Also, what's with that range? Holy shit. If you put 114 lbs into the CDC calculator, it gives a BMI of 19. The upper end of underweight at the CDC site is listed as 18.5. I guess this means the commercial ideal weight is just barely above what constitutes medically underweight. Good to know.