6read5

I don’t – I have been, and I want to.

Because appearance becomes before health for me. It isn’t what I would recommend for my patients.

Fair enough, you are speaking from your own experience. Have you had many people with BMIs less than 18 trying to conceive, though? A lot of women become amenorrhoeic at this kind of weight.

Perinatal mortality in Africa is in part an access to healthcare issue, I agree – but poor maternal health also predisposes to poor outcomes, and even in the…[Read more]

Thanks. I’m relieved to know that you don’t believe people should starve themselves to death (recently admitted a man with a BMI of 12 – I can tell you, he wasn’t healthy).

But what WOULD you say as the lower limit of safety? You repeatedly say "18.5 but lower may be better", but then you don’t specify how much lower.

I had a feeling you would…[Read more]

Well, if you count eating disorders as being a chronic illness then perhaps. I’m not referring to those with malignancy, malabsorption syndromes, heart disease etc. But even women who have always had a BMI below 19 and seem to be naturally that way can have trouble conceiving (as can athletes, as I’m sure you are aware).

I’m intrigued – I know…[Read more]

No I agree that being overweight is also associated with infertility – in the UK you can’t get funding for IVF etc if you are significantly overweight, as the advice is to lose weight first. But you can’t get funding with a BMI of less than 19 either. It’s associated with infertility (even in the absence of amennorhea), and also with low birth…[Read more]

But a BMI of below 19 is associated with infertility isn’t it?

Personally I feel best when my BMI is around 16 – everyone else has told me this is unhealthy, do you disagree?

Rae wrote:

Quote:

A friend of mine is 104lbs and she’s 5’6". She had a child and got back to her pre-pregnancy weight. A co-worker of mine looked to be about 100lbs soaking wet. He was healthy!! None of these people I know are falling over collapsing on themselves!! If they have no problems being healthy at that weight, why can’t we??

But…[Read more]

That’s precisely why it bothers me – he is recommending a weight that is generally considered to be unhealthy.

Of course many people choose to be unhealthily thin, and that is their choice – but for a medical professional to recommend it is a different issue.

It has NOT been proven that the thinner you are the better – it is possible to die of…[Read more]

Perhaps this man was unhealthily thin!

But even if not, we all know that one can’t generalise from one example – there are athletes with a BMI of 26 who are extremely healthy, doesn’t mean we should all be aiming for a BMI of 26.

The usually quoted range for men is BMI 20 to 25 – I’m puzzled as to where Dr Lewis got his evidence that 18.5 is…[Read more]

Now this doesn’t make sense to me, for a number of reasons.

Yes, having a gastric bypass is associated with better outcomes than being morbidly obese – but it has never been thought to be a "healthy" option, just a "less unhealthy" option for people who can’t lose weight any other way.

Are you targetting your diet just at the morbidly obese? If…[Read more]