Chapter 14. Health at Every Size
Chapter Review
IMPORTANT: Key Takeaways
- Weight bias and stigma contribute to increased maladaptive eating and sedentary behaviours, while also increasing one’s susceptibility to mood disorders, poor health outcomes, and mortality.
- One common misconception of obesity is that it is completely within personal control and caused by lifestyle choices such as physical inactivity and poor dietary choices. Such misconceptions contribute to the increased prevalence of weight-based discrimination.
- Body mass index (BMI) uses height and weight to predict body fatness. BMI should not be used as a standalone method to assess one’s risk of developing health problems such as cardiovascular disease because it does not take into account fat mass or fat distribution in the body and can thus underestimate or overestimate one’s body fatness. BMI also has many limitations.
- Cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) is the functional capacity of numerous body systems and is a strong and independent predictor of CVD and all-cause mortality risk. An accurate measure of CRF can be performed via a VO2max exercise test.
- Genetic, psychological/behavioural, and societal influences influence one’s energy intake and expenditure and therefore play an important role in determining one’s weight status. These influences debunk the misconception that body weight is the outcome of personal lifestyle and dietary choices alone.
- Low CRF levels is associated with risk of all-cause mortality and not high BMI/body weight. This means that elevated body weight is not the underlying issue; instead, it is the increased levels of sedentarism and low physical activity levels that need to be addressed.
Practice Questions
- How have the effects of urbanization and technological advancements contributed to the growing rates of obesity worldwide?
- What are the harmful effects of weight bias and stigma? What strategies can be employed to reduce weight-based discrimination in healthcare settings?
- How might you debunk the common misconception that obesity is the result of personal choices alone?
- Sally is a 21-year-old female. She weighs 55 kg and is 1.57 m tall. Calculate Sally’s BMI. What BMI category does Sally fall under?
- Why should BMI not be used as a standalone method for accurately assessing disease risk?
- Why might someone experience difficulty losing weight despite being physically active?
- Reflecting on what you have learned about the relationship between cardiorespiratory fitness and all-cause mortality risk, discuss what is more important: weight loss or increased physical activity participation.
- Why might the current Canadian Society for Exercise Physiology 24-hour movement guidelines/ACSM physical activity guidelines not apply to South Asian populations?
- How do the effects of childhood undernutrition extend beyond one’s lifespan? How do the intergenerational effects of residential school malnutrition affect Indigenous communities today?
- Explain how you can use the small-change approach in your personal life to improve your overall health and fitness levels.
