Body Mass Index faces major criticism (overweight, doctor, work out, protein)
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
BMI always seemed ridiculously simplistic to me...
Quote:
According to an article published in the International Journal of Obesity, researchers from the University of California, Los Angeles and Santa Barbara, are saying BMI is deeply flawed as a measure of health. They used data from the most recent National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) to analyze the link between BMI and several other measures of health, including blood pressure, blood glucose, serum cholesterol and triglyceride levels, insulin resistance and C-reactive protein (a marker of inflammation).
What they found is that nearly half of Americans who are deemed either overweight, or obese based merely on their BMI, are healthy.
Jeffrey Hunger, a doctoral student at UCSB’s Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, one of the co-authors on the paper stated, “In the overweight BMI category, 47 percent are perfectly healthy. … So to be using BMI as a health proxy – particularly for everyone within that category — is simply incorrect. Our study should be the final nail in the coffin for BMI.” BMI is Bologna - American Council on Science and Health
They need to stop using BMI and replace it with something that is actually useful. The man that coined the term "Body Mass Index" (Ancel Keys) never intended its use for individual diagnosis. It was intended as a practical way to assess the relationship between obesity and health across an entire population.
They need to stop using BMI and replace it with something that is actually useful. The man that coined the term "Body Mass Index" (Ancel Keys) never intended its use for individual diagnosis. It was intended as a practical way to assess the relationship between obesity and health across an entire population.
agreed. now they base life insurance payments on it.
It is a medical fact that being overweight (however one defines this) DOES lead to a variety of medical conditions - heart diesese, diabeates, HBP, back, hip, knee problems, problems getting on SW Airlines, etc.
Why is BMI an issue? If you think a BMI over 25 or 30 should not be "Obese" then fine ignore the boundary marker.
Anyone who stops to think about it knows that you are not going from Healthy at a BMI of 22 to Unhealthy at a BMI of 25.
BMI is not perfect, but I suspect the article is overstating how imperfect it is, and I am unable to link to the actual report. The article states 47% of those in the overweight strata of BMI were judged healthy, but it does not specify what percentage of those that were in the obese and above stratas were judged healthy, my guess is it was pretty low.
More importantly weight and height are easy to measure, the lab work required for the additional criteria would be prohibitive for most people. And I personally think cholesterol levels are vastly over rated as an indicator of health.
The Wellness Program where I used to work used both BMI and WHR (Waist Hip Ratio). They not only put employees on a scale, but they also got out a tape measure to measure everyone's waists and hips. They said the WHR was more accurate to determine being overweight and at "risk" of a heart attack (Apple, Pear Shaped people).
The United States (US) Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has proposed rules allowing employers to penalize employees up to 30% of health insurance costs if they fail to meet ‘health’ criteria such as reaching a specified Body Mass Index (BMI). Our objective was to examine cardiometabolic health misclassifications given standard BMI categories. Participants (N=40 420) were individuals aged 18+ in the nationally representative 2005–2012 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES). Using blood pressure, triglyceride, cholesterol, glucose, insulin resistance, and C-reactive protein data, population frequencies/percentages of metabolically healthy versus unhealthy individuals were stratified by BMI. Nearly half of overweight individuals, 29% of obese individuals, and even 16% of obesity type II/III individuals were metabolically healthy. Moreover, over 30% of normal weight individuals were cardiometabolically unhealthy. There was no significant race x BMI interaction, but there was a significant gender x BMI interaction, F(4,64)=3.812, P=0.008. Using BMI categories as the main indicator of health, an estimated 74 936 678 US adults are misclassified as cardiometabolically unhealthy or cardiometabolically healthy. Policymakers should consider the unintended consequences of relying solely on BMI, and researchers should seek to improve diagnostic tools related to weight and cardiometabolic health.
The BMI was never meant to be an indicator of health. It was a census tool and it's entirely too simplistic to be used the way it's now used. Going by the BMI I'm overweight despite having ~10% body fat. In reality I'm very healthy and have a good deal of muscle mass because I exercise 6 days a week and work out 4-5 days a week.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
