• Question: Is it better to be chubby or skinny?

    Asked by jobyhenderson007 to Faye, Martin, Mus, Pete on 24 Apr 2012.
    • Photo: Pete Etchells

      Pete Etchells answered on 24 Apr 2012:

      That’s an interesting one! It really depends on what you mean by chubby and skinny, I guess. It’s not a good thing if you have too much body fat, as this can increase your risk of heart disease, diabetes, and various other diseases. On the other hand, being too skinny is bad for you too, because it can mean that your immune system isn’t working as well as it should be (which might mean you get more infections), and it increases your risk of developing a condition called osteoporosis (which makes you bones really easy to break).

      There’s a measure of body size called the ‘body mass index’, or BMI, which is a sort of ratio between your height and weight. A healthy BMI is anything between 18 to 25, which is actually quite a big range. Someone can be on the skinny or fatter end of that scale and still be healthy!

    • Photo: Faye Didymus

      Faye Didymus answered on 24 Apr 2012:

      Hi jobyhenderson007! Body size is a difficult one…I guess somewhere in the middle is probably the best! As long as you’re not at eiher of the extremes (i.e., really chubby or really skinny), you’re probably doing OK 🙂 As Pete says, BMI is a relatively good measure of where you’re at relative to your weight and height. But tread with caution because BMI doesn’t take things like your muscle mass into consideration! Without getting too technical, it’s not always the best indicator of health because a rugby player for example who has lots of muscles but is fit and healthy, would likely be obese on the BMI indicator. That’s just one example to show that it’s not always a good indicator to go by. If you’re in any way worried, pop along to your GP because they’ll be able to do other tests as well as BMI is order to decide whether your weight is within a healthy range.

    • Photo: Martin Lindley

      Martin Lindley answered on 25 Apr 2012:

      I will answer slightly differently and say it doesnt matter !

      Controversial i know…but research is begining to show that Exercise is the key to health !

      It seems that if you exercise regularly then you will pick up health benefits regardless of your body shape and that it is better to be active and ‘chubby’ than not active and ‘skinny’

      so get out there and exercise 🙂

Comments