Why the BMI is a crock of...well, you get the idea
I read this article today about the growing number of people who are overweight or obese. This really ticked me off.
If people keep gaining weight at the current rate, fat will be the norm
by 2015, with 75 percent of U.S. adults overweight and 41 percent
obese, U.S. researchers predicted on Wednesday.
I'm overweight. In fact, according to the BMI calculations, I'm obese. I'm also losing weight, having dropped 20 pounds in the last three weeks. What ticks me off is that according to the BMI calculations, I was overweight when I graduated from high school, and will probably never get below their measurement for obese. Why? Because I'm naturally muscular (yes, it's under the fat right now) and have a very large frame.
When I graduated high school I weighed 190 pounds. I'm 5'10" tall. That puts me at the upper range of the overweight category. A year or so after graduating, I hit 210, which makes me obese. During high school, I played sports all the time and lifted weights. I was not even remotely fat. According to the BMI, I become overweight once I went over 174 pounds. The only way I can get back to "normal" would be to whither away to nothing.
So, when you see reports like this, remember that BMI is one calculator that doesn't work. Not even remotely. Tom Cruise and The Rock are obese according to this. Do you really believe that? They aren't fat, their fit. That doesn't appear to be taken into account though.