Honestly.
Firstly, scales don't measure the presence or absence of health, and so the term "healthy weight", means literally nothing.
Secondly, the CDC defines a "normal weight" as one giving a person a BMI between 18.5 and 24.9 yet if we were using the word normal correctly, it would differ by country and would reflect its population's mean BMI. So in Nauru for instance normal weight would be a person whose BMI was 32.5, whereas in Eritrea it would be someone whose BMI was 20.5. Given mean BMIs in the US and Canada are 28.8 and 27.2 respectively, in North America, it should be considered abnormal to have a BMI between 18.5 and 24.9.
So what could we use instead?
Risk based terms.
Weight, though not a guarantee for any medical problem, does increase the risk of many, and so I'm proposing that rather than terms which confer judgment, we categorize weight as low-risk, medium-risk, and high-risk, and by doing so we'll stop the erroneous use of healthy and normal terminology that constantly and insidiously promotes weight bias, shame, and stereotype.
Posts
