Nutrition

• Being underweight or overweight is bad for your health.
• Being underweight can make it difficult for your body to fight infections or illness and puts you at risk of fracturing bones if you fall.
• Carrying around excess weight, particularly around the waist, may increase your risk of developing heart disease, cancer and type 2 diabetes.

Overweight

• As we get older our energy needs can decrease so it can be easier to gain weight
• Our body composition changes and we tend to lose muscle and gain fat. As fat requires less energy than muscle to function our energy needs to drop
• Many people also become less physically active as they age
• If you're using fewer calories and you haven't changed your diet, this will lead to weight gain
• Hormonal changes as we get older also mean we become more likely to lay fat around the middle
• So keep an eye on your weight as you get older – it’s easy for it to creep up gradually without noticing.

What is a healthy weight?

Weight alone does not take into account a person’s height. In view of this, weight is usually converted to Body Mass Index or BMI (weight (kg)/height (m2)). The standard World Health Organisation) classifications for BMI:

You can calculate your BMI on the NHS BMI calculator

http://www.nhs.uk/Tools/Pages/Healthyweightcalculator.aspx

In the older person some studies have shown that BMI isn't as good an indicator of health, but the same BMI cut-offs are still used as a guide.

Watch your waist size

Your BMI is a good starting point but you should also measure your waist. This is because people who carry too much weight around their middle have a greater risk of developing heart disease, high blood pressure, cancer and type 2 diabetes if your waist circumference is:

• Men - over 94cm/37inches (substantially increased risk over 102cm/40inches)

• Women - over 80cm/31.5inches (substantially increased risk over 88cm/34.5inches)

The cut-offs are lower for people of Asian backgrounds – If you are an Asian woman and have a waist circumference of more than 80 cm(31.5inches) or a man with a waist circumference of 90 cm(35inches) or more you are at greater risk and should seek advice from a healthcare professional.