1 in 4 Overweight Women Don't Realize It

Despite the fact that obesity runescape gold rates are on the rise in the U.S., many women, in particular, often think their weight is healthy even when it's not.
And a new study out of the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston shows that such misperceptions about one's weight could be a deadly error, leading women to continue to eat poorly, gain more weight and eventually develop the complications of obesity, including diabetes and hypertension.
Researchers report that almost 25 percent of overweight women of child-bearing age don't believe they're overweight, or at least not to a degree that is dangerous. On the other hand, 16 percent of normal weight women also misperceive their body weight, often leading them to pursue dangerous and unnecessary dieting habits. The researchers' data is published in the December issue of Obstetrics and Gynecology.
"We were not surprised by the study results," corresponding author Dr. Mahbubur Rahman, assistant professor in the department of obstetrics and gynecology and Center for Interdiscliplinary Research in runescape money Women's Health, told AOL Health. That's in part because as the nation's obesity rate grows, it becomes more socially acceptable to be overweight and the truth can become more obscured.
Lead study author Dr. Abbey Berenson, professor in the department of obstetrics and gynecology agrees. "People compare themselves to those closest to them," she told AOL Health.
The study does show some cultural differences, however. While more than 80 percent of African American women and 75 percent of Hispanic American women meet the standards for being overweight or obese (meaning they have Body Mass Index ratings of 25 or more), women in these ethnic categories were less likely than Caucasian women to see themselves as overweight. "It is most likely a runescape accounts cultural difference," Berenson explains. "It's more acceptable in the media to be overweight if you're African American, for example."
Both Berenson and Rahman believe their study makes it clear that physicians need to be more proactive when talking to female patients about their weight and how it impacts their health. And the issue goes both ways: while overweight women who don't address their weight issues are putting themselves at risk of heart disease and diabetes, women of normal weight who think they are fat may be engaging in unhealthy behaviors such as smoking, binge eating, purging and crash dieting to curb weight gain.
One of the main problems, Berenson says, is that doctors are so busy they may not feel they have sufficent time during normal check-ups to talk to patients about weight. "And many physicians worry about offending their patients," Berenson adds. "It's important that we see this as a medical condition, not cheap wow gold an aesthetic one."