Final Post #5

In the beginning I was seeking to find and answer, if BMI was correct or not? I guess I always leaned more toward the “no” BMI is not correct. After all the research I had inquired about BMI I was disappointed to learned that there is not really an answer but more of different opinions from many different types of people like doctors, scientist and us. Each which provided reasonable examples like athletic people who were categorized as overweight, some who had disease who were considered underweight and many more.

I was very satisfied to find that each site I came across did all agree that the BMI formula was incorrect and could be improved but for some reason many still use this formula like health insurances. I don’t feel that my answer was directly answered but I do feel better learning and reading that BMI is NOT accurate and can be wrong. I learned there are many ways to find someone’s BMI one by measuring waist and taking that number dividing it by your hip measurement. I did it to myself and was very ecstatic to find I am “normal”.  After weeks of research I still wonder what is normal? Who says what normal is? What formula will we use to find this normal? Are we being cheated by health insurances that use BMI  which decide to cover your health needs? Is this a form of discrimination? How come the world has more obese people in it but we have people living longer?  Some things are not black and white and I feel this is a topic that unfortunately is not.

I don’t feel like I need to argue my research as far as if BMI is correct or not but I do feel it just opened my eyes  and the way I feel about the process of our health insurances and how it may be crooked. Who is the BMI benefitting?

 

Post # 4

After reading your questions, it made me also want to know who invented the BMI? Where is it used? How many doctors use this calculation? So I looked at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_mass_index#Global_statistics and found this,

The BMI was invented sometime between 1830 and 1850 by Adolphe Quetelet. The BMI has been used for approximately 163-183 years. There are scientists that also feel that this BMI calculation needs to be revised. For example professor Eric Oliver which is from University of Chicago. In 2010 there was a study that followed 11,000 people for eight years and found out that the BMI was not a creditable source for deaths n heart attacks and strokes. This study felt that waist to hip was a more creditable way to predict heart disease deaths. It goes on to say how this is not a good source because it says that fit and athletic people are overweight when they are not but because muscle weighs more than fat. I looked on many different websites and I could not find the reason BMI is different all around the word.

I kept looking trying to find out if BMI is used by more doctors or if the waist to hip ratio is to predict if you are considered to be a health risk or not and found that they are saying no more doctors are beginning to use waist to hip ratio. The reason they are doing this is it’s easier for them to see what your genetics are by where you carry majority of your weight on this web site. http://www.bbc.co.uk/health/treatments/healthy_living/your_weight/whatis_bmi.shtml

With this new information I found I am curious then why are they still making a big deal with the BMI? How accurate is the waist to hip? Is this a way to scare the world to be healthy?

Post #3

 

Wow… I just read an article I found on http://health.howstuffworks.com/wellness/diet-fitness/weight-loss/bmi4.htm and really liked what I saw. It went into detail about the history of BMI and also answered some of the questions I had like how could who could a fit person be considered obese. It went into depth starting with child and also gave pictures of the BMI charts. I found that BMI is (weight / height x2). I guess now I think how could we use and judge children with BMI’s? If they know that BMI could be different with different race why isn’t there a different BMI?

So after my question, why aren’t there different BMI‘s for different race? I can across this site http://www.halls.md/bmi/race.htm and saw they gave a chart of overweight BMI and how it varied from Ethiopian overweight was 20.1 to compared to Polynesian was 29.5 was considered overweight. So what if your mixed like myself? I am Hispanic, Indian and White or like my son who is African American, Hispanic, White and Indian. How accurate is it then?  

Since the site above was not the best with a whole lot of information I kept looking. I saw this which I thought was great. This site http://www.webmd.com/diet/calc-bmi-plus not only showed your BMI but also showed your Body Shape. It gave more information than the site I mentioned before. I still have those questions. Who is this intended for? I want to find a BMI that shows one who is overweight or obese that has a patient that has all these health factors. My grandma on my mom’s side it white she is at least 60-100 overweight and is 74 years old and one of the healthiest women I know. She is never sick is very active in her community and passes her physicals fine.