BMI ain't all its cracked up to be

The Body Mass Index (BMI) is problematic. BMI is basically the ratio between your height and weight. Then, providers, websites, hell your next door neighbor, can subscribe a whole host is health problems (or lack of them) to your weight categorization (BMI categorizations include underweight, normal weight, overweight, and obese). It isolates weight from the rest of your life activities. It also does not distinguish between fat and muscle. Several examples that make BMI problematic are:
• Muscle weighs more than fat
• Folks who stay skinny through smoking, drug use and/or have an eating disorder
• Postmenopausal women have decreased muscle mass
And most problematically, BMI rates are used as a factor for insurers: if I have a BMI over 30, I might have a higher rate or be denied insurance all together.

Not mention that all of this data is skewed around race, as Shapely Prose points out.

Enter the New York Times Blog post "Excess Pounds, but Not Too Many, May Lead to Longer Life". It suggests that having some junk in your trunk might help you to live a longer life. As someone who fits into that overweight category, I also like to think that I live life fuller and more celebratory – the scoop of mint chocolate chip, pint of Oberon, and donut from the local bakery are all small treats I wouldn’t do without. That’s not living, baby. Granted, they are indulgences– not norms. Otherwise I wouldn’t appreciate them as much. No donut should ever be taken for granted.

So I’d add an addendum to their blog about how important joy is to my badunkadunk. I usually enjoy the more decadent things in life with loved ones – celebrating graduations, birthdays, and other markers of who we are becoming. I don’t think the BMI could ever trace that – but I’m happy to know that how I “wear” my “celebrations” are also scientifically helping me to live a longer life. This is a step in the right direction.

Shapely Prose's BMI Project

Totally gorgeous and gratuitous photo is from Leonard Nimoy's Full Body Project.