About BMI

Dom_m

From Matt Yglasias:
http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/2010/09/body-mass-index/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+matthewyglesias+(Matthew+Yglesias)

He has a great chart comparing national average BMI for a bunch of countries. Follow the link to have a look. I'm pasting the text of the post here, but you have to follow the link to see the excellent chart:
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The “body mass index” gauge of obesity is easy to calculate, but that very same simplicity means it has some obvious limitations as a metric. Still, it seems to me that it’s a very useful one and much of the criticism misguided for reasons that Monica Lastnameunknowntome explains well at Feministe:

Here’s my response: of course it is. It’s an index. This is what indexes do, they aggregate individual pieces of information to tell you something about a whole. The BMI was never intended to be used as a measure of personal health, but was instead meant to tell us something about entire populations. It’s usefulness on that score remains intact: you can broadly say that, if America’s BMI average is increasing, Americans are getting fatter. Unless it can be explained by something else, like a population-wide protein-shake/weight-training-routine frenzy, which is unlikely to happen.

Similarly, these international comparisons of BMI are telling us something meaningful

[insert chart]

It’s simply not the case that very-high BMI is so much more common in the United States than in France because Americans are all incredibly muscular compared to French people. Admittedly, it would be nice to have more sophisticated information on this subject, but public health is an important subject and it’s necessary to draw some conclusions based on available data.

SouthernBell86

I think it would be really interesting to see this chart compared to one showing how much people in those countries walk each day. My personal experience with having lived abroad is that almost everyone in the world walks more than we do, and I myself lost weight without making any effort because I had to walk more as well.

Probably you could look at that state by state as well. Isn't Texas generally called the fattest in the Union? Or at least one of them? Well I lived in Texas for a few years, and in Texas you have to drive everywhere. There are almost no public transportation options, and everything is so spread out that you really can't walk as a means of transportation like people in New York City could.

I think there is a big difference between being able to walk for transportation, and having to find time in the day to walk as exercise.

That's not to say that it is OK for us to be more overweight, I just think that food is not the only reason we are fatter than other countries. As we all learn on MFP it takes diet and exercise to lose weight, and to be on top of the BMI list, I think that it probably takes inadequacy in both areas as well.

MacMadame

I like this article because I get tired of people slamming BMI as if it shows nothing and also of people misusing it.

It's definitely useful for allowing us to compare large populations against each other, which makes sense because that's what it was developed for in the first place.