A lot of women start running because they want to lose weight. And it’s easy to understand why – running is the cheapest, most readily available form of exercise you can find. After all, in order to take up running, you only need shoes and a road, unlike other forms of exercise that require a ton of specific equipment, a trainer, and charge a fee for every workout. However, for female runners that won’t achieve results or reach a particular goal, weight shouldn’t really be a focus. Even though it’s a terrific cardiovascular workout that burns a ton of weight, new data suggests that for runners looking to improve results, weight shouldn’t be of focus at all.
Let’s learn why.
BMI is not as Important as You Were Made to Believe
When you go to the doctor’s office for an appointment, you’re often required to write down your height and weight. Doctors require that data because they use it to measure your BMI (body mass index), and that’s used to determine whether you’re at a healthy weight for your height. And there’s an existing belief that having a lower BMI is beneficial for endurance athletes as it leads to increased cardio fitness levels.
However, new data suggests that, specifically for young women, BMI is not as important a factor as we’re led to believe. When conducting their study, researchers went through the BMI and cardiorespiratory (VO2 max) levels of more than 2,000 patients (805 of whom were women) and found that women who had a lower BMI also had a lower VO2 peak, especially if they were aged anywhere from 17 to 30. That led them to the conclusion that having a low BMI doesn’t necessarily mean that a person has a high fitness level. Furthermore, the research showed that for women between 17 and 30, those with a BMI around 23 (considered the higher end of “normal weight) actually had the best fitness levels compared to the other women participating in the study. Typically, on the BMI scale a result of under 18.5 is considered “underweight), anywhere from 18.5 to 24.9 is “normal weight,” a BMI index from 25 to 29.9 is considered “overweight” and 30 or more is thought to be “obese.”
Generally, researchers did notice a trend that adults with a lower BMI also showed better overall aerobic results, but that wasn’t true for all participants and especially untrue for young women. In fact, having a really low body weight can be harmful to a person’s ability to operate at a high VO2. For doctors, VO2 max is a terrific way to measure a person’s fitness levels, and data shows that operating at any extremes of the BMI index can be counterproductive.
More often than not, athletes (more specifically young women) tend to relate being thin to having high fitness levels, but data suggests that’s not a valid assumption. And so, the focus on weight and the idea that “the lighter you’re, the better” should be shifted to a focus on health, especially when it comes to young athletes.
And while there’s still more research to be done, it’s widely known in the fitness community that the BMI index has to be looked at with an asterisk for people who train regularly. Even the CDC admits that BMI is not as vital for healthy individuals. When it comes to the general public, the BMI remains a terrific way to look at a person’s health; however, when it comes to athletes, it fails to paint the full picture.
What Should Young Female Athletes Focus On?
Instead of obsessing over the scale, young female athletes should instead be encouraged to improve their aerobic fitness by focusing on their training, nutrition, and sleep. Those three factors play a much more vital role in athletic performance than weight, and if you get them correctly, the numbers on the scale won’t matter at all when it comes to your ability to show terrific results.
When you’re building the body of an athlete – made to achieve particular goals, the whole idea is to make sure it functions in the best possible way. In most cases, that means a lack of obsession over particular numbers and instead an overall focus on what makes the body feel at its best. For example, I may love eating chocolate at night, but it might also make me sleepy and sluggish and so avoiding eating it at night should be due to that reason. Instead, I can eat a block of chocolate before my workout – that way, it will give me the energy when I need it the most, and I won’t be depriving myself of foods I love. Along with that, for any runner, the focus on recovery should always be present, especially if you’re considering running half-marathons or marathons. Those are challenging distances that require quite a bit of training, and the more you train, the more focus there should be on how to recover in the best way possible.
Before We Part Ways
Young females are often encouraged to run or train in order to “improve their appearance” or to lose weight. Because of that, many start to obsess over the numbers on the scale and come to believe that having a low BMI is equivalent to being a better athlete.
However, the reality is different, and it’s up to us to change the narrative. Instead of making girls feel like the only reason to exercise is to lose weight, we should encourage them to pursue athletic goals and achievements, along with a healthier lifestyle overall. Once the focus shifts from “Am I skinny enough” to “How can I feel better in my body,” we will have all reached our goal and thus also helped tons of women improve their athletic performance and overall health.
