What is Health? Body Positive Vs. A Healthy Body - Embodied Wellness Radio | Episode 13

Today I wanted to quickly talk about something that's had me perplexed for the past few days, and that's the recent Cosmopolitan magazine "This is Healthy" cover campaign.    The publication spotlighted 11 women who represent the so-called different "shapes and sizes" of "fitness", and shared the stories of "11 women who prove wellness isn't 'one size fits all."

Now first I want to begin by saying that I am fully onboard the body positive movement, as if you listened to our last podcast with fitness model Tessa Barresi, many of us who have come up in the fitness industry and shifted into the holistic health scene have had to deal with some pretty huge mental issues around our bodies, and in time have become comfortable finding a sustainable lifestyle and comfort with our bodies.  And in NO WAY am I body shaming, fat shaming, plus-size model shaming, or have biomarker evidence that the people featured on the covers are unhealthy or have a pre-existing disease (other than what I can make an educated guess on, based on the physical state of the many obese women featured)

I am concerned that moving forward, there's going to be a movement of people that default to unhealthy habits based on the justification that they're practicing "self-love", "body acceptance", "body positive" and so on.  It seems as if physical health is now becoming subjective, and less data drive, and I don't think articles like this are helping that.

Mental and spiritual health aside, I think the discussion we need to get some clarification on is what is "Body Positive", and what is "A healthy body", because I'm beginning to think there is a fine line between justified self-indulgence and true self-respect for ones body.

Today's topic is not meant to offend, trigger or make anyone upset, but I do hope that with some of the information I share it might be thought provoking enough to help you to form an educated opinion of your own!

First of all, what is the definition of health?

The Merriam Webster dictionary definition of health 1A. is "the condition of being sound in body, mind, or spirit, especially :freedom from physical disease or pain. 1B. "the general condition of the body"

The definition of obese is "having excessive body fat", "Having excessive body weight caused by the accumulation of fat; or extremely fat."

This isn't a very good definition however, as it doesn't give us any metrics to go off of.  So I moseyed on over to the CDC website, the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.  They're way of defining obesity are done through, average height, bodyweight and Body Mass Index scores to create a better definition.  But even then at an individual level, BMI is not a diagnostic of the body fatness or the health of an individual, but merely a screening.  For instance, I am (Denon Maximchuk)  5'10 and about 195 pounds, therefore calculate to be in the 3rd category, overweight, even though I stay around 10% body fat year round. Interestingly, it also works the opposite way - which I didn't know until reading this 2013 study on the Natural Library of Medicine called Obesity and body fat classification in the metabolic syndrome: impact on cardiometabolic risk metabotype by Catherine M Philips and staff found that 87% of subjects classified as normal and overweight by BMI were obese according to their BF%, and all found elevated pro-inflammatory c-reative proteins and insulin resistance. *Shocker*.

A better way to determine obesity is through body fat percentage.  Keep in mind measuring your body fat percentage doesn't assess your risk metabolic disease, but can certainly paint a better picture of overall health. The reason body fat percentage testing is more measurable is because it takes into account  frame size, muscle mass, sex and age into account.  Assessing your own body fat percentage with callipers isn't easy, so it's best to get a coach to do it, or see your doctor, or any other applicable professional setting.   If you're really lucky and have a facility with a DEXA scan machine, do that! The DEXA SCAN is the clinical gold standard for measuring fat, muscle, and bone density, as it uses XRAY technology to give you a precise scan.  And based on the Catherine Philips study I mentioned before, they concluded by saying that assessing BF% and BMI as part of a metabotype may help to identify individuals at greater cardiometabolic risk than BMI alone.

So what is a healthy level of fat? First of all, let's make something abundantly clear, we NEED fat.  It's essential for survival.  Aside from being an excellent energy source for the body when it becomes oxidized, fat cushions and helps organ function, and plays a key role in the nerve, and brain function. 

So the question you're probably asking is