When it comes to the issue of body fat some to many people seem to lose all common sense and just go crazy about the issue. This article looks at some of the factors that affect this emotive issue. During this article I speak of body fat % not weight. These terms are interchangeable in all practicality but you can compare fat of two people using body fat while you cannot with weight, e.g. imagine the weight difference between a muscle bound 6 foot 6 rugby player (198cm) and a 5 foot 3 sedentary person (160 cm). With body fat % you can compare them if both 20% fat.
Body Fat Brackets
Most people live in a body fat brackets of around 7%-10% of their ideal to worst case scenario. This signifies the difference between being on top of the world to total disaster. For example, when you are 30% body fat you may feel horrendous and out of shape, at 27% you feel ok but need to improve while at 24% you feel great. If you ever got to 21% you would be the happiest person in the world. This bracket is different between people, the next person may have those exact same feelings but between 22% where they feel awful and 12% where they feel on top of their game. These levels seem to have come from your social circle, role models and elements of self evaluations and personal values. The good thing about this is you can lose 7-10% body fat in 10-12 weeks of good effort. So most people are only a few months away from achieving their goals and being really happy with how they look.
How the Word ‘Fat’ has more than one meaning
One of the main issues about body fat is that people confuse how the term can be used. There are four main ways in which you could use body fat as a phrase. One of the least helpful is using it as an absolute term, the media’s loves to try to make everyone categorised as fat or thin. This then makes everyone worried that this label is going around and if you are unlucky you will ‘catch it’ and all of sudden be classified as “fat”. Hence the typical reactions seen if someone implies you are overweight etc.
Body fat is relative to the population, either as a whole group or a personal sub set within your social/role model circle. The general population is overweight, this is normal with two thirds consider overweight or obese (>30% body fat) and every year these numbers are rising, especially in younger people and children (see video down the page). The picture below shows the typical distribution for body fat amongst the general population. Most are over 30% fat which is overweight or obese (Note – Women are naturally 7-10% fat an the scale is adjusted for this).
Based on your body fat bracket as mentioned above, you will consider anyone above your bracket level to be “fat” and anyone below it ‘thin’. A funny element of this is that anyone below your body fat bracket though you will say are thin you will rationalise a reason they are different to you to explain why they are at a level you are not. e.g. they are young, full time model, used drugs, health freak, anorexic, don’t have a life, good genetics, do not work your hours, have your family etc.
Different social groups have very different body fat brackets, speak to some ballet dancers, cat walk models or bikini athletes and their disaster zone body fat level are at a completely different place to any normal person in the street. Like it or not this stems from the conditions they need to do their work, hobby or compete.
Another term of “fat” is the adjective to describe relative body fat levels to how you were before. I know from being 4% fat that even when back to 7% you feel fat. It is undeniable because you do have more fat on your body. The term fat can be used to mean you have gained fat from before even though you are still in the lower end of your personal bracket and for the general population. Saying you are ‘fat’ right now to mean you are a little above where you normally are is not really going to get much sympathy from someone who is already 20% more fat than you are. This leads to confusion.
Fat is also a term used to describe a feeling. After eating a cake you may feel fat, from sitting around and not exercising all weekend you may feel sluggish and bloated from bad eating and thus feel fat. The reality is your body fat levels are pretty much the same but the feeling isn’t.
You can see someone get in a flap about the different issues of fat here>>>, the writer is going mental because the media have deemed Kate Moss fat. If you separate out the different terms of fat above you can see what is happening. On an absolute scale Kate Moss is not fat, obviously, but on a relative scale to how she was before you could use that term. The photos show she is fatter than before. It is undeniable. The personal brackett and feeling of fat is only known to Kate herself but the media will judge you based on the population bracket you are in. She is a famous cat walk model. They have low body fat bordering on anorexically too low and those photos are not in that zone. To me this is all irrelevant as a helpful debate whether someone is fat or not. However, most people have all sorts of things associated to labels of fat and thin. This is at the root of this issue and I will discuss this next time.
For now it may be helpful if you –
1) Recognise and accept yourself for where you are on the population wide relative scale of body fat, identify where you are (you are probably not as bad as you think anyhow) and understand there is no line separating the two sides as fat or thin. It is a sliding scale.
2) Accept where you are and stop beating yourself up.
3) Understand that your position today is based off your eating habits, your movement regime, how you handle ‘stress’ and your underlying knowledge / values. To change your body you must manipulate these factors. When you do this anything is possible.
Part 2 will discuss the underlying issue behind body fat and the meaning we assign to it.
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