Jul
21
Jessica is “overweight” — and a triathlete
This link has been making the Internet rounds… It’s a growing collection of photos of normal people, along with their heights, weights and BMI classifications.
Body mass index is a simple mathematical formula that uses height and weight to estimate body fat and determine where you fall on the obesity scale. But as one of my favourites, Jessica, illustrates, there are some serious flaws with BMI, including that it can’t tell the difference between fat and lean muscle.
Consider adding your own photo to the collection (you have to sign up for a Flickr account), after calculating your BMI.
For further reading:
- How accurate is body mass index?, from Webmd.com
- A high BMI can cause health problems, from Women’s Health
- BMI is out of date (from 2006), from the Montreal Gazette
- Fat bias worse for women, from the New York Times
One Response to “ A little BMI ”
I agree that BMI is no indication of healthy weight, fitness or much of anything. My WiiFit apparatus does the calculation of my BMI (based on my height which I provided the first day, and my weight which is determined by the “balance board”) every time I use it for aerobic, yoga, balancing or strength training exercises, and I am told in a cute little voice: “That’s normal!” But this figure (25.3 last time) doesn’t convey my loss of muscle mass or inability to sustain vigorous exercise half as long as I could five years ago.
By Karen Enriquez on Aug 19, 2009