Maffetone Philip B, Rivera-Dominguez Ivan, Laursen Paul B
MAFF FITNESS PTY LTD. , Sydney , Australia.
Sports Performance Research Institute New Zealand (SPRINZ), AUT University , Auckland , New Zealand.
Front Public Health. 2017 Jan 3;4:279. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2016.00279. eCollection 2016.
For the first time in human history, the number of obese people worldwide now exceeds those who are underweight. However, it is possible that there is an even more serious problem-an overfat pandemic comprised of people who exhibit metabolic health impairments associated with excess fat mass relative to lean body mass. Many overfat individuals, however, are not necessarily classified clinically as overweight or obese, despite the common use of body mass index as the clinical classifier of obesity and overweight. The well-documented obesity epidemic may merely be the tip of the overfat iceberg. The counterpart to the overfat condition is the state, also a common and dangerous health circumstance associated with chronic illness and starvation. Currently (and paradoxically), high rates of obesity and overweight development coexist with undernutrition in developing countries. Studies in cognitive linguistics suggest that accurate, useful, and unintimidating terminology regarding abnormal body fat conditions could help increase a person's awareness of their situation, helping the process of implementing prevention and simple remedies. Our contention is that promoting the terms "overfat" and "underfat" to describe body composition states to the point where they enter into common usage may help in creating substantive improvements in world health.
在人类历史上，全球肥胖人口数量首次超过了体重过轻的人口数量。然而，可能存在一个更严重的问题——一种由相对于瘦体重而言体脂过多而导致代谢健康受损的人群所构成的“过度肥胖大流行”。然而，尽管常用体重指数作为肥胖和超重的临床分类指标，但许多过度肥胖的人在临床上并不一定被归类为超重或肥胖。有充分记录的肥胖流行可能仅仅是过度肥胖冰山的一角。与过度肥胖状态相对应的是“过瘦”状态，这也是一种与慢性病和饥饿相关的常见且危险的健康状况。目前（矛盾的是），在发展中国家，肥胖和超重的高发生率与营养不良并存。认知语言学研究表明，关于异常体脂状况的准确、有用且不吓人的术语有助于提高人们对自身状况的认识，推动预防和简单治疗措施的实施。我们的观点是，推广“过度肥胖”和“过瘦”这两个术语来描述身体组成状态，直至它们被广泛使用，可能有助于在全球健康方面取得实质性改善。
