Why is scale not so important?

Why is balance not so important? Because it only gives us body weight data, but we know that our body weight is determined by different components: bone mass, muscle mass, organs, fat tissue, among many others.

The scale should not be an object of torture for you to obsess over and weigh yourself every day. Although it is recommended to always use the same scale to weigh yourself, preferably at the same time and once a week to track your weight, this indicator is not the absolute king to point out food problems.

In terms of health, body weight is only information, but it has many biases. Because by focusing only on this numerical aspect, we risk generating unhealthy behavior, because we are trying to reach a figure at the cost of restrictive diets and that often they tend to be very dangerous.

It is common to hear that someone wants to “reach” a certain weight, a threshold of kilos that is sometimes tracked with little information about the types of diet and physical activity that should be performed depending on age, lifestyle and more. 60 kilos”, may be healthy for some and not for others.

Let’s think about this, if we have two people, one who is sedentary with bad eating habits and another who plays sports and has a healthy diet. Both can weigh the same. Who do you think is healthier? Well, clearly the most active person with good habits.

Overweight and obesity are defined as an abnormal or excessive accumulation of fat that can harm health. The WHO warns that both health problems have reached epidemic proportions. Obesity rates have almost tripled since 1975 and have increased almost fivefold among children and adolescents, affecting people of all ages and social groups around the world.

There are many differences between the appearance of a pound of fat and a pound of muscle. They have different volumes and have a very different impact on our health. Only the number that marks the scale is no longer a diagnosis of obesity or a synonym of disease in itself

For this reason, it is important to understand that the scale only gives us one piece of information that tells us very little about people’s health.

So as a conclusion, the important thing is that we focus on improving people’s diets and quality of life so that they can be sustained for the long term.

* Romina Pereiro is a graduate in nutrition MN 7722

* Production: Dolores Ferrer Novotný / Editing: Rocío Klipphan

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