Maggie's Farm

"Fat America". The pictures showed the problem with the latest meme that we are all fat. First of all it is important to point out that if 20% are obese then 80% are not obese. Secondly most athletes and most really sexy woman are overweight or obese according to the BMI. In a lot of these cases it is the BMI that is the problem. The BMI is a very imperfect measure of weight vs body type that heavily (pun intended) penalizes shorter people and benefits taller people. But worse the cutoff for ideal weight or overweight etc is totally arbitrary and have little to nothing to do with health or ideal weight. Someone arbitrarily selected the BMI numbers as though they were handed down from god. If you are above 25 you are overweight, period! The implication is of course that you are also "unhealthy". Yet real data and statistics have shown the healthiest BMI is 27.5. That is the BMI which people have fewer illnesses and live longer. Above or below this health outcomes are worse. But interestingly even then higher BMI's are healthier then lower BMI's. That is a BMI exactly 5 points above this imperical ideal of 27.5 is healthier then a BMI 5 points below that. One of the confounding factors about BMI that reinforces the belief that lower is better is most of us when we were 16-21 were in good shape and probably a BMI of 23-25. We looked good, felt good and who doesn't want to look as good as they did between 16-21 again. But if you are 40 and your BMI is 23 you tend to look skinny and for some even a little unhealthy. For many reasons at 40 a BMI or 27.5 is healthier and more "normal". Nothing wrong with goying to the gym and trying to look as good as you did at 21 but don't conflate that goal with perfect health. There are a lot more factors then BMI and depending on your body type, age and conditioning BMI just might mean little to nothing.