MONDAY, Nov. 22 (HealthDay News) — Nearly one-quarter of young
women who are overweight actually perceive themselves as being normal
weight, while a sizable minority (16 percent) of women at normal body
weight actually fret that they’re too fat, according to a new study.
The study found these misperceptions to be often correlated with race:
Black and Hispanic women were much more likely to play down their
overweight position compared with whites, who were more apt to worry that
they weighed too much (even when they didn’t).
Even though the study looked mostly at low-income women attending
public-health clinics in Texas, the findings do mirror other studies in
different populations, including a current Harris Interactive/HealthDay
poll.
That survey found that 30 percent of adult Americans in the
“overweight” class believed they were actually normal size, while 70
percent of those classified as fat felt they were simply overweight.
Among the heaviest group, the morbidly obese, 39 percent considered
themselves merely overweight.
The problem, according to study lead author Mahbubur Rahman, is the
“fattening of America,” meaning that for some women, being overweight has
become the norm.
“If you go somewhere, you see all the overweight people that think they
are normal even though they’re overweight,” stated Rahman, who is assistant
professor of medicine and gynecology at the Center for Interdisciplinary
Research in Women’s Health, University of Texas Medical Branch at
Galveston (UTMBG).
In fact, “they might even be overweight or normal-weight and think they
are quite small compared to others,” added study senior author Dr. Abbey
Berenson, director of the Center for Interdisciplinary Research in Women’s
Health at UTMBG.
The new findings are published in the December issue of Obstetrics
& Gynecology.
The study looked at more than 2,200 women who had arrived at a
public-health clinic for reproductive assistance, such as obtaining
contraceptives.
According to the study authors, more than half of these
reproductive-age women (20 to 39 years), who were the subject of this
trial, were above a normal body mass index (BMI). An even higher
proportion of black Americans (82 percent) and Mexican Americans (75
percent) were overweight or obese.
Women were classified into one of four groups: “overweight
misperceivers,” meaning overweight women who thought they were
normal-weight or even underweight; “overweight actual perceivers,” who
accurately perceived their size; “normal-weight misperceivers” who worried
they were too heavy; and “normal-weight actual perceivers,” meaning those
whose perceptions were in sync with the weigh-scale.
According to the study, 23 percent of overweight women saw themselves
as being smaller than they were, while 16 percent of normal-weight women
worried they were too big.
Race seemed to play a role in self-perceived weight. Among overweight
women, 28 percent of blacks and about 25 percent of Hispanics considered
their weight within the normal range, compared to 15 percent of overweight
white women. The trend was the opposite among normal-weight women, with
more whites (16 percent) believing they were fat, compared to just 7
percent of blacks.
Women who had more education and surfed the World wide web were more likely
to be in tune with their actual body size, the researchers said.
Mistaken notions of one’s weight position can have implications for
behavior, and perhaps health, the researchers noted. For example, women
who were overweight but thought they were normal size were less likely to
try to lose any excess weight by dieting or other means. On the other
hand, women who saw themselves as fatter than they were, were more likely
to use diet pills or diuretics, to induce vomiting or to smoke cigarettes,
often as ways to control or lessen their weight.
“Unfortunately, women can’t do anything to lose weight if they don’t
perceive themselves as overweight. It does begin there,” stated Keri Gans,
a registered dietician based in New York City and a spokeswoman for the
American Dietetic Association. “If they don’t perceive themselves as
overweight, they’re not going to adopt healthy behaviors to lose weight
and prevent disease. Meanwhile, the normal-weight people who don’t
recognize they’re at normal weight are engaging in behaviors that place them
at risk for illness.”
Women need to be aware of what “normal” actually is, in terms of
numbers. And weighing yourself isn’t the only way, and might not even be the
best way, to monitor creeping weight gain, Gans said.
“I don’t think the only way to maintain body weight is to weigh
yourself,” she said. “You know when your pants are too tight. You don’t
need a number to tell you that.”

More information

To check your BMI, head to the U.S. National Heart, Lung,
and Blood Institute.