All of us, then, can learn from the example of these students: Understanding the influence of our unconscious minds can offer useful and important information about ourselves, and we ignore this information at our own risk.

那么，我们所有人都可以从这些学生身上得到启示：了解我们潜意识的影响能够为我们提供关于自身的有用且重要的信息，如果我们忽视这些信息，就将是自担风险。

These are the best ways to measure your body fat

测量体脂的最佳方法

1

This week, an office conversation turned to body weight. We all know that being overweight is not great for your health—it’s linked to metabolic diseases like diabetes and cardiovascular problems. But weighing yourself won’t tell you all you need to know about your disease risk. A friend of mine is a super-fit marathon runner. She’s all lean muscle. And yet according to her body mass index (BMI), which is a measure of weight relative to height, she’s overweight. Which is frankly ridiculous.

I, on the other hand, have never been all that muscular. I like to think I’m a healthy weight—but nurses in the past have advised me, on the basis of my BMI, to eat more butter and doughnuts. This is advice I never expected to receive from a health professional. (I should add here that my friend and I are roughly the same height and wear the same size in clothes.)The BMI is flawed. So what should we be using instead? There are several high-tech alternatives, but a simple measure that involves lying on your back could also tell you about how your body size might influence your health.

First, let’s talk about fat—the most demonized of all body components. Fat is stored in adipose tissue, which has some really important functions. It stores energy, keeps us warm, and provides protective cushioning for our organs. It also produces a whole host of important substances, from hormones that control our appetite to chemicals that influence the way our immune systems work.Not all fat is equal, either. Our bodies contain white fat, brown fat, and beige fat. While white fat stores energy, brown fat helps burn calories. Beige fat tissue contains a mixture of the two. And white fat can also be broken down into two additional categories: the type under your skin is different from that which covers your internal organs.

It’s the visceral fat—the type surrounding your organs—that is thought to be more harmful to your health, if there’s too much of it. Having more visceral fat has been linked to an increased risk of diabetes and cardiovascular disease. (That relationship isn’t straightforward either, though; studies have shown that removing this “excess” fat doesn’t improve metabolic health.)Either way, having a good idea of how much fat is in your body, and where it is, would be valuable. It might at least give us some idea of our risk of metabolic disorders. There are quite a few different ways of measuring this.

BMI is the most widely adopted. It’s the official measure the World Health Organization uses to define overweight and obesity. On the plus side, it’s very easy to calculate your BMI. Unfortunately, it doesn’t tell you very much about the fat in your body or how it corresponds to your health. After all, your body weight includes your bones, muscles, blood, and everything else, not just your fat. (And as we’ve seen, it can lead well-meaning health practitioners to recommend weight loss or weight gain when it’s really not appropriate.)Instead, Emma Börgeson, who studies cardiometabolic disease at Aarhus University in Denmark, and her colleagues recommend the SAD measure. SAD stands for sagittal abdominal diameter, and it’s a measure of the size of a person’s belly from back to front.

Journal：technologyreview

Title：How Your Unconscious Mind Guides Your Behavior Every Day（Oct 11, 2024）

Category：Biotechnology and Health

Either way, having a good idea of how much fat is in your body, and where it is, would be valuable. 

不管怎样，清楚地知道你体内有多少脂肪，脂肪在哪里，都是有价值的。

SAD is simple, affordable, and easier to implement than waist-to-hip based measurements.

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