Of course not. Calorie balance dictates fluctuations in bodyweight (shifts in water weight notwithstanding, we’ll come to that later) and that is a primary method which we can use to improve health, but be careful when considering this as the only issue. As we mentioned earlier, weight and body composition are not the same thing and it is very possible to be at a healthy weight and yet be metabolically unhealthy – largely due to food choices, alcohol/smoking/drugs and low activity levels. From an aesthetic standpoint, it’s also quite clear that you can be a healthy weight and not be happy with your appearance.
As such, improving your food quality, considering your macronutrient intake and managing your levels of stress, sleep, hydration and exercise can have a phenomenal impact on your health independent of changing your weight, although this may happen as an aside.
Waist circumference is one key means of determining your health risks independent of weight. The below tables are a reasonable indication of how healthy you are, which consider frame size and muscle mass to a more reasonable extent than BMI does. As a final note on this, there is the benefit here that those who do not wish to weigh themselves can still take objective measurements of their current situation and their progress.
| Health risk | Women | Men |
|---|---|---|
| Low risk | Below 31.5 inches | Below 37 inches |
| Moderate risk | 31.5 to 35 inches | 37 to 40 inches |
| High risk | 35 inches or more | 40.2 inches or more |
With all of that said, it would be inappropriate to forget that the calorie in/out equation is undeniable, and that excess bodyweight (or at least bodyfat as indicated by waist circumference) is probably the primary factor in lifestyle related disease, or at least the second most important after activity levels. Calories do indeed impact weight and therefore health regardless of source, as is indicated by the college professor from Kansas State University who ate a diet of Twinkies, cereal and Oreos at 1800 calories per day to lose a lot of weight and improve a number of blood lipid levels which are important risk factors for heart disease. While this is very telling, though, it doesn’t mean that a Twinkie Diet is a good idea long-term – for long-term health we also need to consider the composition of those foods, and it is to that topic that we will turn for the next few modules of this course.