THE IMPACT OF BEING TOLD I'M OBESE - AND I'M NOT!

HAYSTACKS CALHOUN

My physical size has at times been useful, but also a hinderance throughout my life. I’ve never considered myself overweight, or ‘fat’, yet time and time again I’ve been told I’m obese based on the Body Mass Index (BMI) algorithm. I’m just grateful that I didn’t grow up in today’s unrealistic age of internet and social media where our youth are inundated with images and information pushing them to look a particular way. A way that is unsustainable and unhealthy. Yet, the pressure on our young digital natives to conform has led to online trolling, bullying and harassment, escalating mental health problems and for some, suicide.

I have never disputed I am on the larger size, both height and weight as a human being. Yet I can vividly remember how affected I was about my size. My family shrugged it off saying I had molasses, the thick, dark brown juice obtained from raw sugar during the refining process in my shoes. That according to my parents made me grow larger; or that I was “big boned”. My mother used to regale the story when I was about 18 months old, I was the size of a three-year-old. One day at the local shops two lovely old ladies were attempting to speak with me. My responses I was told were age appropriate for an 18-month-old - hardly legible. This was not expected by the two ladies. When I didn’t respond appropriately, both ladies held my mother’s hand and comforted her, saying “we are so sorry your son is disabled”. It shocked my mum, telling the ladies I was only 18 months old. They too were shocked and so apologetic and embarrassed. "Ooh” they said.. “we thought he was much older”.

When I started in school back in the 1960s, I always stood out. In fact, I would often be mistaken for being in an older age class. When at PE (Physical Education) we would be required to form up in a straight line where our teacher would choose two classmates begin picking people for their respective teams. Depending on your popularity or athletic ability, they chose you first. I always hoped they would select me early, but that rarely was the case. Much like a US National Football League (NFL) draft, the later you were chosen, the less worth you were. I felt that. It was always a humiliating process, and one I detested.

Whilst in primary school, I would be ‘anointed’ the nickname ‘Haystacks’ after the legendary US professional wrestler Haystacks Calhoun. Every Saturday morning, I would be glued to the television watching the World Championship Wrestling. It absorbed my childhood with names like Sheik Ayoub, King Curtis, Mario Milano, and Killer Karl Cox and Abdullah the Butcher. had become Houshold names. Their names and backstories would never be acceptable now nor pass the censorship authorities these days.

But it was the US giant ‘Haystacks’ that my mates would compare me to. By age 14, Haystacks already weighed a whopping 140 kilograms (300 pounds) and by his early 20s, weighed over 270 kg 600 pounds. At 193cm (6’4) “Haystacks” stood out. Legend has it a traveling wrestling promoter that saw him pick up and move cows across a field on his parents’ farm in Texas discovered that Calhoun.

I never really knew whether to be offended by my ‘similarities’ to ‘Haystacks’ or view it as n a positive. But I took it and wore it as a badge of honour which confounded some of my friends.

Never once did I consider myself “fat” or “obese”, but as I got older and sought employment, the Body Mass Index (BMI) would become my nemesis. Many health care experts think BMI is a useful tool to measure weight and health risks, but others question its accuracy because of clinical limitations. But while it is a simple, inexpensive method of screening for weight categories, BMI was never designed as a medical diagnostic tool. The BMI was developed in 1832 by the Belgian mathematician Lambert Adolphe Jacques Quetelet. It was designed it to quickly estimate the degree of overweight and obesity in a given population to help officials decide where to allocate health and financial resources. Interestingly, Quetelet would later in life state that BMI was not useful in studying single individuals but designed to give a snapshot of a population’s overall health.

In 1984, when I first applied to join law enforcement and first responder agencies, I was told by many my BMI was unsuitably high, which resulted in employment rejection. I had successfully represented my country in track and field, received a Gridiron scholarship at the University of Hawaii, and was working out five days per week. That meant nothing and made no difference. I was weighing around 115kg (253 lbs) at a height of 194cm (6’4”), could run a 100m in under 12 seconds, bench press 140kg (308 pounds) and Squat 230kg (506lbs). At that weight my BMI calculation of 30.6 listed me as a ‘high health risk’. What I would learn was the BMI did not consider the significant shift in population mass from 1832, age, gender, ethnicity or muscle mass differences. Nor did it distinguish between lean body mass and fat mass. People such as heavily muscled athletes may have a high BMI even though they don’t possess a high percentage of body fat index.

When I applied to join the Australian Federal Police (AFP), I was told by recruiters that for my height, I could be no heavier than 93kg (205lbs). The organisation was steadfast on me achieving that weight, despite me arguing it was discriminatory. I was eventually successful in gaining entry but in doing so, had to alter my nutrition, live on soups, reduce my fluids and use diuretics to get my weight even close to 93kg. The day that I travelled to Sydney to prove my newfound ‘healthy’ weight, I was so dehydrated, nauseous, and ill that I would later that day vomit and pass out when I arrived home. The irony was I had to undertake a severely unhealthy process to be proven ‘healthy’ by a 150-year-old mathematical equation - the BMI. It wasn’t lost on me that less than two years later, discrimination laws outlawed such requirements.

More recently, BMI has haunted me again. It's been conveniently used by insurance entity via medical professionals to deny me claim. The insurance company sourced ‘medical specialist’ in his report stated according to my BMI, I was–his words–‘obese’ and a "contributing factor of my poor health". Despite in the past five years successfully completing over 7 half marathons and one marathon, I was, in this medical specialists eyes still obese and at a high health risk.

In my time as an elite athlete, I have undergone many skinfold testing procedures, also known as caliper testing. It was a commonly used method to determine my body fat percentage. Funnily enough, I always ‘passed’ this test and was told I was very healthy for my age, height, and weight. I have also undertaken a technique of measurement known as the densitometry technique (underwater weighing). A far more accurate test is where I was submerged in water on a sling to determine the displacement factor between fat and muscle. It did not consider me obese. Of course, with the increased level of technology these days, there is such a tool known as the Dexa Scan. it accurately determines body fat%, total fat mass, total lean mass, and visceral fat (a type of body fat that’s stored within the abdominal cavity (liver, stomach and intestines). This technology was not around when I was younger. However, hostile and profit driven insurance providers still prefer to use the simple 1832 designed BMI test rather than truly assess a person’s body fat through an appropriate technology like the Dexa Scan. Why might you ask? Insurance providers are driven by profit! Not driven by the core ideology of ‘care’. They know all too well that referring to the BMI will always give them the result they require, not what’s best for the individual.

With such bloody-mindedness circulating in our societies, is it any wonder then why our young generation are suffering from body dysmorphia, a mental illness characterised by an obsessive focus on a perceived flaw in appearance, that might and has been dangerous or life threatening to many. The internet and social media are saturated with pictures, blogs and advice on how to achieve the ‘perfect body’. This overbearing, delusional, over-represented idea of what the media, and everyone else, believes what can and cannot be beautiful in our world, is tearing our youth to pieces.

I still struggle with continually be told I’m obese when in fact I know I’m not. Until the media, social media, medical practitioners and insurance agencies alter their language and narratives, many will be adversely affected, and body shamed re-traumatising people like me again and again.

ME WEIGHING APPROXIMATELY 125 KG (275 ILBS)