Body revelation

I apologize if this wanders towards the Land of TMI. But I was so excited, I had to blog it. If nothing else, because it seems like the people who read this are female.

During one of my endless surfing sprees, I came across a Slate article by Explainer. I generally like Explainer, because it takes interesting conversation topics and pares it down to the factual. Today's topic - how can the skinny Nicole Richie possibly be pregnant. The short answer is that nothing is impossible, just varying levels of unlikely. But the cool part is the idea that you need a certain and surprisingly high body-fat percentage (24%) to become pregnant, or at least have regular periods.

Not content with a single source (especially one that even mentions Nicole Richie), I did more research. Admittedly, my results were constrained by what sites popped up and were available. The numbers vary, but then again, if it was a fitness site, the "ideal" percentages were lower than fertility sites. Sadly, I couldn't access an article in the New England Journal of Medicine that examined amenorhea and body fat. Some of the more academic/research oriented sites also suggested that menarche depends on achieving a certain body fat. Which, by extension, would explain why girls are starting their periods earlier and earlier in a world of increased access to nutrition or at least Doritos.

For me personally, this alleviated some of the guilt I felt about my body fat percentage after a couple days of pizza. Depending on the site, I am normal to slightly overweight, which is pretty funny, since I am underweight based solely on pounds. Also, it might explain my funky periods and why they never regulated. Not that I was ever super-skinny, but if I was teetering on the edge of the magic body-fat percentage, maybe that's why. It is nice to know that there might be a reason beyond "my body's weird like that."

on the iPod: "Optimistic" - Radiohead