Overweight Has Become The Norm For American Women. Part 2 of 3

The altered findings are published in the December issue of Obstetrics & Gynecology. The study looked at more than 2200 women who had arrived at a public-health clinic for reproductive assistance, such as obtaining contraceptives. According to the boning up 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,” connotation overweight women who thought they were normal-weight or even underweight; “overweight realized 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 dictum 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 authority 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 instruction and surfed the Internet were more likely to be in tune with their actual body size, the researchers said.

Parts: 1 2 3