What she or he probably didn’t accuse you of on Wednesday morning is being “overfat”. But you probably are.
That’s because‚ according to researchers‚ more than three-quarters of the world’s population is overfat‚ including plenty of normal-weight people.
“The overfat category includes normal-weight people with increased risk factors for chronic disease‚ such as high abdominal fat‚ and those with characteristics of a condition called normal-weight metabolic obesity‚” said the lead author of a new study‚ Philip Maffetone.
Maffetone‚ a US doctor and specialist in nutrition‚ exercise and sports medicine‚ added: “The overfat pandemic has not spared those who exercise or even compete in sports.”
Writing in the journal Frontiers in Public Health‚ the research team describe being overfat as having sufficient excess body fat to impair health‚ and said 76% of people worldwide suffered from the condition.
“We want to bring awareness of the rise in these risk factors‚ where the terms ’overfat' and 'underfat' describe new body composition states. We hope the terms will enter into common usage‚ to help create substantive improvements in world health‚” said Maffetone.
The work also indicates that up to 10% of people may be “underfat”‚ leaving just 14% with normal body-fat percentage.
“This is a global concern because of its strong association with rising chronic disease and climbing healthcare costs‚ affecting people of all ages and incomes‚” said Maffetone.
The study says the new terminology is important to replace notions of “overweight” and “obese”. While it is estimated that up to 49% of the world's population are obese or overweight‚ the epidemic may merely be the tip of the overfat iceberg‚ said Maffetone.
The researchers said waist circumference was the best visible indication of whether someone is overfat. – TMG Digital/The Times
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