Is the BMI (Body Mass Index) Accurate?
have stated it. Fitness, not your BMI or body weight, is what determines your health. You can be overweight, even obese, and healthy. But there’s a caveat. You must also be fit. Today, fewer and fewer of us are fit. We simply don’t exercise. Weight has nothing to do with fitness; there are just as many skinny out-of-shape people as fat ones. Unfortunately, the trend toward sedentary lifestyles is growing, and our children are the ones suffering for it, as they are growing up in a world where the norm is to eat fast food and sugary snacks while sitting in front of the television or computer. This was part of the problem facing nutritionists and weight experts in the early 1980s, when television and office work became normal and farm work and physical labor became the exception. How do you help inactive people determine whether they are at a healthy weight? Enter the BMI, a 150-year-old technique. Imported from a world totally different from the one we live in today, the BMI has become a
