I have been a flight attendant for the past seven years. I love my job and I love traveling around the world.
BMI requirement
However, my airline has always have a policy which I always had struggles to keep up with
They require all employees to meet their BMI (Body Mass Index) requirement, and if we don’t meet it, we could be grounded to lose weight and even maybe lose our jobs.
I have always been skinny but my weight was never the same as my size.
That made my BMI always borderline or maybe even exceeding the requirements a little.
Always struggling to maintain BMI
I always struggled to be able to meet the required BMI, and to hit it, I have no choice but to starve myself to make sure I didn’t get grounded. (also known as jobless and no money)
I started by eating very small portions of food and avoiding snacks. I also stopped drinking any liquids other than water, and I started exercising more.
I would go on long runs and do intense workouts every day.
At first, the weight loss was slow, but after a few weeks, I started to see results. I was losing weight quickly and I was getting closer to meeting the BMI requirement.
Affected my health
However, soon after I started to see results, I started to feel very weak and exhausted. I was constantly dizzy and had no energy.
I was losing more weight, but I was also losing my health.
I tried to ignore the symptoms, but my body was telling me that something was wrong. I started to get scared and I knew that I had to stop starving myself if I wanted to stay healthy.
But it was too late. I had already lost too much weight and I was now too close to meeting the BMI requirement.
I had to keep going or risk being grounded.
So I did what I had to do and kept on pushing myself. I continued to eat small portions of food and exercised even more. I was determined to meet the requirement.
Hospitalised
Unfortunately, it was all for nothing. I eventually passed out and had to be taken to the hospital.
The doctors told me that I was severely malnourished and if I had kept going, the consequences would have been dire.
I was devastated. Not only had I risked my health, but I had also ended up having to leave my job.
Recovered
It took me a while to get my health back on track and after leaving the airline, I felt much healthier as I had no more pressure to keep my BMI in the range they wanted.