I have long said the bmi is a joke. and this just furthers my point.even how it was formulated almost 200 years ago is silly and it is time for a major update.
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/health/sfl-bmi-mislabels-54-million-americans-as-overweight-or-obese-study-says-20160208-story.html
but, will the constant talking point of america has an obesity epidemic stop? I doubt it.
are there a few heavy folks?? yes…is their epidemic??
Wow - what a stupid article. When I walk around I see loads of not just overweight people but people are out and out fat! We’re so fat compared to every other place in the world that it is clear we have an epidemic.
I like how the article on quick reading hides some of the facts.
"They found that nearly half (47.4%) of overweight people and 29% of obese people were, from a metabolic standpoint, quite healthy. On the flip side, more than 30% of individuals with “normal” weights were metabolically unhealthy. "
This means that 71% of obese people are not healthy vs 30% with normal weights who aren’t.
53.6% over overweight people are not healthy again vs 30% with normal weights.
I can also pretty safely assume that the actual paper is much more nuanced than what this writer is reporting.
BMI is not all that nuanced itself, though. I think it can be helpful in a rough estimate sort of way for many people, but its limitations are well-known - it doesn’t account for athletes’ greater muscle mass, for instance.
Maybe I’m a bit skeptical, too, because in 1998 the CDC made 30 million Americans overweight by changing the normal/overweight BMI cutoff from 27.8 to 25. (The obesity cutoff was always 30.) This brought the US definition into line with the WHO’s definition of overweight, but I can’t help noticing it also made a nice boon for the weight loss and pharmaceutical industries.
I think most people know whether or not their BMI is an accurate reflection of how overweight they are. Of course, younger people need to be educated about its limitations since they will be the ones more likely to take it as gospel.
I think we are just beginning to learn about the nuances of the genetics of obesity and how environmental factors can disrupt peoples hormones in gestation and afterward.
There is much more to becoming obese than eating too much.
My tall/large for age, athletic D (upper elementary school) has been tagged as “overweight” from her school based on her BMI and has developed quite a complex. She has been pulled in with other kids to discuss healthy eating and exercise and has been made to feel that there is something wrong with her. She is invited each week to join in the healthy body group at lunch and recess where they learn about portion control, food choices, and then they exercise together. When she doesn’t show up, kids come to get her. She is mortified to be signaled out this way. We asked to opt her out. We went and got a doctors note to have her removed from the group.
She is far from overweight- - she has just grown earlier than her peers. She does exercise a lot and has muscle mass along with already starting to develop. Our doctor showed us her comparison to her older sister and they were almost identical in their growth curves, height, and weight at the same age – and her sister is now a tall, slender, beautifully fit girl. She has been the same size & weight since 6th grade. Younger daughter can wear all of her sister’s hand me downs from this same age. We see the same growth for our younger - but the school is now implementing this program and she has been flagged due to her borderline BMI. We also receive parenting advice from the school to help her get to her “healthy range” – we are not happy about this BMI craze. It has made our 10 year old ashamed and stressed out and according to all previous #'s she is in the healthy range.
I gained 6 inches and 30 pounds between 6th grade and 7th. I am so glad I wasn’t pulled out and made to join a “healthy eating group” or anything similar. I stopped growing in height and weight after age 13 and now in my 50s am within 10 pounds of that weight.
I applaud that schools are trying to teach about healthy portion sizes and encourage exercise but it is bad when they make healthy people self conscious about their bodies and feel they need to change.