David Baxter PhD
Late Founder
Do I look fat in this?
Globe and Mail
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Is Sidney Crosby overweight? Yes, if measured on the Body Mass Index, the most common clinical tool for assessing body weight in individuals. The world?s best hockey player is veering uncomfortably toward the line that separates the obese from the merely overweight. His employer, the Pittsburgh Penguins hockey club, lists him at 5?11??, 200 pounds. That puts him at 27.9 on the BMI; obesity begins at 30. According to the website of the Public Health Agency of Canada, being overweight puts him at increased risk of developing health problems. (It?s doubtful the agency was referring to concussions.)
Increasingly, scientists are questioning the usefulness of the Body Mass Index in assessing when people are overweight or obese. ?BMI is known to be of limited accuracy,? says a new study in the journal Obesity, mentioning those with elevated muscle mass and people of different ethnic groups. The article doesn?t minimize the dangers of obesity as a risk factor for chronic diseases including diabetes. But, it says, ?it is important to target efforts to reduce adiposity [fat] for groups most at-risk for obesity-related chronic diseases.? The BMI (the ratio of weight to height squared) casts the net too wide.
Canada and much of the world are trying to fight obesity, with little success. Part of the problem is that not all the people deemed overweight, and not even all those deemed obese, are at the same risk.
It?s subversive to say that these days. Everyone is supposed to be weight-conscious. But some medicine professors are questioning the concept of what a ?healthy? weight is. ?If you?re healthy, it doesn?t really matter what your weight is,? says Arya Sharma, the chair of obesity research and management at the University of Alberta. He has proposed a five-stage obesity ranking, with the lowest stage being no apparent obesity-related risk factors such as high blood pressure. In the Obesity article, several doctors proposed what they called ?a better index of body adiposity,? a calculation using hip circumference and height.
Our society is weight-obsessed, and to what end? In the past 30 years two billion diets have been begun in the United States, or six per adult, and no doubt a large number in Canada, too. It hasn?t helped much. The BMI casts too large a shadow. A narrower focus on risky fat deposits is needed.
Globe and Mail
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Is Sidney Crosby overweight? Yes, if measured on the Body Mass Index, the most common clinical tool for assessing body weight in individuals. The world?s best hockey player is veering uncomfortably toward the line that separates the obese from the merely overweight. His employer, the Pittsburgh Penguins hockey club, lists him at 5?11??, 200 pounds. That puts him at 27.9 on the BMI; obesity begins at 30. According to the website of the Public Health Agency of Canada, being overweight puts him at increased risk of developing health problems. (It?s doubtful the agency was referring to concussions.)
Increasingly, scientists are questioning the usefulness of the Body Mass Index in assessing when people are overweight or obese. ?BMI is known to be of limited accuracy,? says a new study in the journal Obesity, mentioning those with elevated muscle mass and people of different ethnic groups. The article doesn?t minimize the dangers of obesity as a risk factor for chronic diseases including diabetes. But, it says, ?it is important to target efforts to reduce adiposity [fat] for groups most at-risk for obesity-related chronic diseases.? The BMI (the ratio of weight to height squared) casts the net too wide.
Canada and much of the world are trying to fight obesity, with little success. Part of the problem is that not all the people deemed overweight, and not even all those deemed obese, are at the same risk.
It?s subversive to say that these days. Everyone is supposed to be weight-conscious. But some medicine professors are questioning the concept of what a ?healthy? weight is. ?If you?re healthy, it doesn?t really matter what your weight is,? says Arya Sharma, the chair of obesity research and management at the University of Alberta. He has proposed a five-stage obesity ranking, with the lowest stage being no apparent obesity-related risk factors such as high blood pressure. In the Obesity article, several doctors proposed what they called ?a better index of body adiposity,? a calculation using hip circumference and height.
Our society is weight-obsessed, and to what end? In the past 30 years two billion diets have been begun in the United States, or six per adult, and no doubt a large number in Canada, too. It hasn?t helped much. The BMI casts too large a shadow. A narrower focus on risky fat deposits is needed.
