NASA astronaut Sunita Williams has finally broke her silence to address concerns that she has lost a freighting amount of weight while on the International Space Station.
Photos of Williams, 59, who has been on the ISS for 159 days, showed her looking ‘gaunt’ with a much thinner frame, leading experts to speculate the stresses of space were taking a toll.
But Williams explained in a live video that she was the same weight as when she launched to the ISS in June and the change in her appearance was due to fluid shift.
‘I think things shift around quite a bit, you probably heard of a fluid shift,’ Williams said in a live broadcast from the ISS.
‘Folks in space you know, their heads look a little bit bigger because the fluid evens out along the body.’
Doctors have raised concerns about Williams’ appearance, noting her face was not puffy but ‘gaunt.’
Dr Gupta told DailyMail.com: ‘Her cheeks appear a bit sunken – and usually it happens when you’ve had sort of total body weight loss.
‘I think what I can discern by her face and her cheeks being sunken in is that [she] has probably been at a significant [calorie] deficit for a while.’
Williams, however, hit back at the ‘rumors’ saying she has actually put on muscle.
‘My thighs are a little bit bigger, my butt is a little bit bigger. We do a lot of squats,’ she said.
NASA astronaut Sunita Williams has broken her silence about fears that her health has deteriorated since becoming stranded on the International Space Station (ISS)
The health concerns surface when a photo from September appeared to she her with ‘sunken’ cheeks and a thinner frame
Williams, 59, and Barry Wilmore, 61, have been living on the ISS for five months after Boeing’s faulty Starliner spacecraft was deemed unsafe to return them to Earth – the mission was initially an eight-day stay.
She spoke with the New England Sports Network Clubhouse Kids Show Tuesday while more than 250 miles above Earth’s surface.
During the interview, she addressed health concerns, calling them ‘rumors,’ and discussed her food intake, such as dining on a Turkish fish stew with olives and rice.
Williams did not provide details about her caloric intake while aboard the ISS, but blamed changes in her appearance on a phenomena that occurs in space.
During spaceflight, weightlessness instantly shifts blood and fluids from the lower portion of the body to the upper areas, resulting in a puffy pace and thinner legs.
However, the concerns about Williams’ health did not focus on weight put on in her face, but the weight loss in her face.
A photo taken September 24 captured Williams tucking into a pepperoni pizza and chips while surrounded by condiments and other treats.
Dr Gupta told DailyMail.com last week that although she did not seem at a place where her life was in danger, ‘I don’t think you can look at that photo and say she has sort of healthy body weight.’
More recent, a NASA source told the New York Post that NASA has been scrambling to ‘stabilize the weight loss and hopefully reverse it.’
The unnamed employee who is ‘directly involved with the mission’ said that Williams has been ‘unable to keep up with the high-caloric diets that astronauts must consume’ while on the ISS.
‘The pounds have melted off her and she’s now skin and bones. So it’s a priority to help her stabilize the weight loss and hopefully reverse it,’ the NASA source told the New York Post.
Sunita Williams and Barry Wilmore before their mission on June 5. Williams said that she is the same weight now as she was at launch
Williams did not touch on her caloric intake while on the ISS, but alluded that she was eating well