Heart disease is an issue in my family - my father died from it, as did his father, and my maternal grandfather, as well. Maybe it makes more sense now why I am a personal trainer?

So I am 46 years old, 6 ft 1 inch tall, 195 lbs, 31 inch waist, 135 total cholesterol (70 of that is HDL), and my blood pressure is 100 over 65 most days. According to the website that can help you determine your "heart age," I am 31. I guess that is good, except that they think I am overweight at 195 lbs (despite my waist size and, which they did not ask for, my low body-fat percentage).

People who know their 'heart age' make greater improvements to their heart health

Date: February 5, 2014
Source: Kaizo
Summary: New research suggests that talking to patients about their heart health using the "Heart Age" concept, a simple way of estimating and expressing cardiovascular risk, promotes behavioral changes that result in a reduction in their CVD risk, leading to improved health outcomes.

Risk scores for diseases such as CVD are usually presented as the percent chance of contracting the disease within the next ten years. The Heart Age Calculator, http://www.heartage.me, uses the same well established risk factor data, but expresses an individual's risk score as their estimated Heart Age to make it more personally relevant to the individual.

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the world's biggest killer(3), but doctors have long struggled to explain risk factors to patients in a way that encourages them to change their behaviour thus reducing risk. Previous research has shown that Heart Age is more likely to be understood and motivate people to make positive changes than traditional % risk scores, especially those who are at higher levels of modifiable risk(4).

Now, for the first time, researchers have shown that using the Heart Age tool to raise awareness of CVD risk promotes behavioural changes that result in a decrease in CVD risk. Researchers at the University of the Balearic Islands, Spain carried out the study amongst 3,153 patients, who were randomly assigned to one of three groups before completing an annual health assessment. One group was then presented with their CVD risk expressed as a % risk, while another received the same information expressed as their estimated Heart Age. A third control group received general guidance on healthy living only. Follow up measurements were recorded a year later during the subsequent annual health assessment.

Dr Pedro Tauler, researcher belonging to the Research Group on Evidence, Lifestyles and Health from the University of the Balearic Islands, commented "We know that traditional risks scores can be confusing. We wanted to test whether using the Heart Age Calculator to talk to patients about their CVD risk would have an effect on motivating them to adopt healthier lifestyles and, in turn, reduce their risk of developing CVD."

The results showed that patients who had been told their CVD risk (both as a percentage or Heart Age) demonstrated significant decreases in their risk scores compared to the control group, with improvements being greatest in the Heart Age group. Furthermore, patients who were told their Heart Age were far more likely to take action to live healthier lifestyles, such as quitting smoking. Quitting rate for smokers was four times greater in the Heart Age group compared to those who received the traditional percentage risk scores.

The authors highlight that the significant improvement in CVD risk seen in this study in the Heart Age group was reached with no intervention other than informing participants of their Heart Age.

Dr Pedro Tauler said: "This would suggest that the mere fact of presenting the patients with information that is easy to understand has a positive effect in engaging them to take preventive action. Heart Age is a cost- and time-effective strategy to motivate patients to adopt a healthier lifestyle that results in a reduction in their CVD risk. The simplicity of the tool and the fact that it is easy to understand are core to its effectiveness."

Story Source: The above story is based on materials provided by Kaizo. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

Journal Reference:
A. A. Lopez-Gonzalez, A. Aguilo, M. Frontera, M. Bennasar-Veny, I. Campos, T. Vicente-Herrero, M. Tomas-Salva, J. De Pedro-Gomez, P. Tauler. (2014). Effectiveness of the Heart Age tool for improving modifiable cardiovascular risk factors in a Southern European population: a randomized trial. European Journal of Preventive Cardiology; DOI: 10.1177/2047487313518479

This Is the Average Man's Body (The Atlantic Monthly)

A friend over at Facebook alerted me to this article in an off-hand way - he jokingly asked his friends and followers, "Who would you rather?" among the four nationalities presented in the article below (United States, Japan, Netherlands, France). Of the four men (averages formed into a avatar), the "Todd" from the U.S. is 5' 9" tall, with a 39" waist and a body mass index (BMI) of 29 - 30 is obese.

As a personal trainer and athlete, I see these "average men" and feel sad that we have fallen so far from our potential - the average man in the U.S. is a fraction from obese . . . and that's AVERAGE!

I am not blaming the individuals . . . although there is always the option to change one's lifestyle. I also know from my years as a trainer how difficult that can be even for those who want to do so. If it were easy or simple, no one would go through the torment of being overweight in a fat phobic society (that is, ironically, overweight and obese on average).

A big part of the problem is the processed nutrition-void foods we eat, the marketing atmosphere we live in, the endocrine disrupting chemicals in the air and water (and in food packaging, water bottles, no-stick pans, aerosols, and so on), and the urbanization of human life (taking us away from a life spent working on the land, doing physical labor) - all of these things and more have contributed to this Todd avatar, from the U.S., at least, being a pudgy man.

We can only change it for ourselves, and lead by example . . . . How are you leading? What are you teaching your kids about health and fitness?

This Is the Average Man's Body

Graphic renderings of modern males

James Hamblin Oct 10 2013



Todd is the most typical of American men. His proportions are based on averages from CDC anthropometric data. As a U.S. male age 30 to 39, his body mass index (BMI) is 29; just one shy of the medical definition of obese. At five-feet-nine-inches tall, his waist is 39 inches.

Don't let the hyperrealistic toes fool you; Todd is an avatar. I gave Todd his name, and gave his life a narrative arc, but he is actually the child of graphic artist Nickolay Lamm as part of his Body Measurement Project.

Todd would prefer perfection—or at least something superlative, even if it's bad—to being average. But Todd is perfect only in being average. With this perfection comes the privilege of radical singularity, which is visible in his eyes.

Though in his face this reads lonesome, Todd does have three international guyfriends. They met at a convention for people with perfectly average bodies, where each won the award for most average body in their respective country: U.S., Japan, Netherlands, and France. The others' BMIs, based on data from each country's national health centers, are 23.7, 25.2, and 25.6.

I named them all Todd, actually, even though it could be confusing, because not everyone's name is a testament to their cultural heritage.

 

This is how Lamm made the Todds. It's also what zombie Todds look like.



And here are Todds from the right.

 

Most people look better from their left, but Lamm rendered the Todds from their right, just because he can. To these men, Nickolay is God.

Avatars of various ethnicities are important, because obesity depends on culture and genetics. The weight of every person's destiny is equal, but some countries are fat, and others are not. The World Health Organization cares about that, because understanding the differences should help to explicate causes.
 

(World Health Organization; based on 2008 data)

So does history. Fifty years ago, American Todd would not have been round. The trend is not unique to men, either; Lamm just chose to work with white male renderings. The same CDC data puts the female BMI in this age group at 28.7.

U.S. Obesity, National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys, 1960-2000

Americans are also losing ground in height. For most of two centuries, until 60 years ago, the U.S. population was the tallest in the world. Now the average American man is three inches shorter than the Dutch man, who averages six feet. Japanese averages are also gaining on Americans'. Anthropologists tie these recent changes primarily to diet and lifestyle, as we've turned habitable wilderness into excess. 

(All images by Nickolay Lamm)

George Maat, a professor emeritus of anthropology at Leiden University Medical Center in the Netherlands, has said that within another 50 years, the Dutch Todd could be six-foot-three. Several years ago the Netherlands was compelled to increase building code standards for door frames. If in the last half-century the American physical form has been expelled from international imagination as an ideal, we might presently look at the situation not just as failure, but with optimism for what we might become.