Name: Here's why Wisconsinites feel shame about being eligible for the vaccine because of their BMI, and why experts say they shouldn't
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Here's why Wisconsinites feel shame about being eligible for the vaccine because of their BMI, and why experts say they shouldn't

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USA TODAY NETWORK-WisconsinView CommentsWhen Sarah Tritt saw that people with a higher body mass index would soon be eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine in Wisconsin, she weighed herself.&nbsp;There were jokes all over social media about&nbsp;people doing the same&nbsp;— and swinging by the Culver's drive-thru, throwing another burger on the grill or indulging in more frequent Friday night fish fry dinners.But for Tritt, 23, of Madison, it was no joke. In recovery for an eating disorder that developed when she was 17, she said she avoids weighing herself because it can trigger an onslaught of harmful thoughts. She hadn't weighed herself&nbsp;in half a year, and when she did, she found she'd gained weight during quarantine, which upset her.&nbsp;Tritt is in counseling, but said she still struggles with resentment toward her body and the false narrative that weight gain is a moral failing.As a healthy young person, she&nbsp;also wondered whether she deserved to get the vaccine earlier than others just because she weighs more."On the other hand," she said, "if I'm going to be treated a certain way because of something relatively insignificant, I might as well take advantage of that."&nbsp;RELATED:&nbsp;RELATED:&nbsp;Wisconsin is one of at least 29 states that has opened vaccine eligibility to people who are considered obese, with a BMI of 30 or above. Health officials also opened it to people deemed overweight, with a BMI of 25-29.9.Nearly 70% of Wisconsin adults fall into those two categories,&nbsp;, and they officially became eligible Monday.It's led to some complex questions.Why use BMI, which experts say can be an inaccurate measure of health and can worsen racism, sexism and fatphobia in medicine?If you're healthy but fall into the overweight or obese categories, should you delay the vaccine to let people with more serious pre-existing conditions go first?And how can Wisconsin health officials encourage people to get the vaccine without making them feel ashamed of their bodies?BMI was devised in the early 19th century by Belgian mathematician and statistician&nbsp; Adolphe Quetelet, who intended it to measure the average size of white men across a population, not to determine a single person's health.By performing a quick calculation using your weight and height, you can find your BMI — but it doesn't differentiate between fat and muscle, meaning many professional athletes would be considered obese by its standards.The goalposts have also moved over time: In 1998, the National Institutes of Health to be considered overweight from a BMI of about 27 to a BMI of 25.Some research has found a link between high BMI and more severe COVID-19 cases. , being obese&nbsp;may triple the risk of being hospitalized with a coronavirus infection, and risk of death from the virus increases as BMI increases.It's one of the conditions that the , which hands down federal guidelines on who should be prioritized for the COVID-19 vaccine, classifies as a high-risk underlying medical condition that would make someone eligible sooner.However, a Jan. 25 found that a higher BMI was not a factor that led to different outcomes in critically ill COVID-19 patients.Weight stigma has long had negative physical and psychological consequences for people, experts say."We treat overweight and obesity like it's this group that deserves to be shamed — we think about it as an epidemic, but we also think about it as an individual problem, a personal responsibility and failing," said Kate Phelps, a lecturer in the Gender &amp; Women's Studies department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who teaches body politics and fat studies.Phelps&nbsp;uses the term "fat" instead of "overweight" or "obese" because of the pathologized nature of the latter terms.&nbsp;Like people of color who have long faced medical mistreatment because of their race, fat people have similar reasons to be suspicious of vaccine eligibility based on their weight, she said.Weight bias is pervasive in medicine, according to a February 2019 article in the . Doctors may offer weight loss as the answer to any medical issue instead of probing further, and bad experiences at the doctor's office can cause people to avoid health care visits altogether.Simultaneously, assuming that someone is healthy or at low risk of complications from COVID-19 because their BMI is under 25 can&nbsp;be dangerous too, Phelps said.&nbsp;"There's such an emphasis on how we've conflated health with aesthetics that it's something we all really need to actively be unlearning," she said.Jokes about needing to put on weight to qualify for the vaccine can also have serious consequences for people with eating disorders, which have already been rising during the pandemic, said Dr. Richa Aggarwal, a psychiatrist and eating disorder expert at the Rogers Behavioral Health outpatient center in Appleton."Anxiety is very high because of all of this, and (discussions of BMI) will stir more anxiety," she said. She recommended taking a break from social media or talking to a therapist if the discourse is becoming harmful.Some Wisconsin residents who are eligible purely because of their BMI are wondering whether they should be, given BMI is an inaccurate measure of their health and their risk of developing a severe case of COVID-19.That was the case for Lauren Kohlenberg, 25, of Shorewood. When she first heard that she'd be eligible based on BMI, she felt a sense of relief that she'd soon be able to keep herself and her family safe."Then came the guilt," she said. "They label it as a serious health condition ... is it serious enough?"Kohlenberg, too, has struggled with body image and spent much of her young life concerned about weight. It hurt to find out she'd finally get the shot she'd been waiting for based on an outdated metric, she said, and because she's healthy, it felt like a "skip the line" card.But vaccine rollout is already so complex, Phelps said, that if you're granted eligibility for any reason, you should take it."It's too hard to know, on a personal or individual level, 'Who deserves&nbsp;it more than me?'"&nbsp;Phelps said.Plus, in the end, every person who gets vaccinated is going to play a role in stamping out COVID-19&nbsp;in the community, she said. The more people who get vaccinated as quickly as possible, the faster we'll reach herd immunity and outbreaks will stop because the virus won't have new hosts to infect."Part of me really feels like the BMI eligibility is good ... because it covers the majority of people, and makes them eligible," Phelps said.Kohlenberg received her first shot Tuesday morning and said the joy of being vaccinated outweighed her discomfort over qualifying because of BMI.She said she took comfort in the fact that many older Wisconsinites, who are at a higher risk of serious complications from COVID-19, have already been vaccinated, and that Milwaukee's health department had opened who may be more vulnerable to the virus.She's been working with a trainer for a few years to help herself view her body as something that can do great things, not something she has to hide."I walked in (last week) and said I'm eligible because of BMI, and (my trainer) looked at me and said, 'You know that's a horrible, outdated unit of measurement, right?' I said, 'Yeah, but if it lets me get a shot...'""She said, 'Oh, absolutely. But don't let it define how you think about yourself.'"&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;To get help in dealing with an eating disorder, you can , or text "NEDA" to 741741 to reach a trained volunteer at the group's crisis text line.Contact reporter Madeline Heim at 920-996-7266 or . Follow her on Twitter at .View Comments

USA TODAY NETWORK-WisconsinView CommentsWhen Sarah Tritt saw that people with a higher body mass index would soon be eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine in Wisconsin, she weighed herself.&nbsp;There were jokes all over social media about&nbsp;people doing the same&nbsp;— and swinging by the Culver's drive-thru, throwing another burger on the grill or indulging in more frequent Friday night fish fry dinners.But for Tritt, 23, of Madison, it was no joke. In recovery for an eating disorder that developed when she was 17, she said she avoids weighing herself because it can trigger an onslaught of...

Here's why Wisconsinites feel shame about being eligible for the vaccine because of their BMI, and why experts say they shouldn't

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