Maintenance of your body weight

Everyone is interested in his body weight. Some want to lose it, some need to put on weight, while others, who have managed to be of normal weight, wish to maintain it.

If you are not one of those people who are worried about their weight, you will wonder why weight is so important? Undesirable weight can affect our vitality, our appearance and our emotional life. It affects our longevity also. Weight is one of the gross parameters of our health. You will be interested to know that the life insurance companies collected data about weights and heights and developed the first tables of desirable weight for height to guide their agents to determine the premium to be paid by their clients. The clients, who were underweight or overweight were found to be at greater risk, and therefore had to pay higher premium. Thus our weight indirectly affects our financial liability too.

There are three factors, which affect our normal or desirable weight. These are our age, height and body build. By the time we reach 25 years of age, the body building process is complete and so also our need to add weight. It is advisable for us to maintain the weight throughout life.

If you have reached your desirable weight for your height by 25 years of age, your weight should not increase after that. When you are 40, there is no reason to weigh more than what you were at 30. The same is true of after years. But you will observe a number of men and women gain half a kilogram a year after the age of 35 or 40. You may think it is insignificant to worry about a gain of as little as half a kilogram. But when it continues for 10 to 15 years, those extra kilograms are certainly visible. By taking balanced diet plan (with a good nutritionist) according to your body requirements and changing in lifestyle helps you to maintain the weight.

Height and body build are determined by heredity. So you have little control over height and body build, but you can decide and control the weight you carry on this body frame. The desirable weights for men and women of different heights are given in Table below. This table was prepared by the Life Insurance Corporation of India.

Table: Weight for Height for Men and Woman

Height (Feet & Meters)	Men's Weight (kgs)	Women's Weight (Kgs)
5'-0" (1.523 m)	50.8-54.4	50.8-54.4
5-1" (1.548 m)	51.7-55.3	51.7-55.3
5-2" (1.574 m)	56.3-60.3	53.1-56.7
5-3" (1.599 m)	57.6-61.7	54.4-58.1
5'-4" (1.624 m)	58.9-63.5	56.3-59.9
5'-5" (1.650 m)	60.8-65.3	57.6-61.2
5'-6" (1.675 m)	62.2-66.7	58.9-63.5
5'-7" (1.700 m)	64.0-68.5	60.8-65.3
5'-8" (1.726 m)	65.8-70.8	62.2-66.7
5'-9" (1.751 m)	67.6-72.6	64.0-68.5
5'-10" (1.777 m)	69.4-74.4	65.8-70.3
5'-11" (1.802 m)	71.2-76.2	67.1-71.7
6'-0" (1.827 m)	73.0-78.5	68.5-73.9
6'-1" (1.853 m)	73.3-80.7	73.3-80.7
6'-2" (1.878 m)	77.6-83.5	77.6-83.5
6'-3" (1.904 m)	79.8-85.9	79.8-85.9

Record your weight regularly. Remember three things when you weigh yourself. First, weigh at regular intervals, say once a month, at the same time of the day and as far as possible, on the same scale. Your weight may vary as much as a kilogram or more during a single day. This variation is due to the water you drink (about 1 kg per day), the food you eat (each meal may weigh 600-750 gm) and loss of weight through urine and faeces. If you have a scale at home, the best time to weigh is in the morning, before you eat or drink anything. If you weigh away from home, try to use the same scale each time you weigh yourself, so, that the error due to the scale may be minimal. 

Secondly, try to wear similar light clothing. Please weigh yourself without wearing shoes or chappals. If you are carrying a purse, a briefcase or a bag of books please put these down before weighing yourself. Most of these can add 0.5 kg. or more to your weight and thus give a wrong value.

Thirdly, record your weight in your diary or a notebook along with the date. Compare your weight with the desirable weight for your height. Compare your weight with the record of your weight last month and the month before that also. Suppose you weigh 55 kg today and you find that it is half a kg more than last time. You may think it is not important to worry about it, since your weight varies more than that in a day. But check your weight record and see if there is an increase. If that is the case, it is the time to take action, before it gets difficult to manage. If you are underweight, you need to watch too, to see that you gain steadily, until you reach the desirable weight for your height and body build.