Tuesday, May 14, 2013

Body Mass Index Takes A Blow

I’ve said before that the Body Mass Index measurement was a garbage calculation.  Now it looks like people are starting to realize that a nearly two-centuries old calculation is not the best measurement of your health:

Measuring the ratio of someone's waist to their height is a better way of predicting their life expectancy than body mass index (BMI), the method widely used by doctors when judging overall health and risk of disease, researchers said.

BMI is calculated as a person's weight in kilograms divided by the square of their height in metres, but a study found that the simpler measurement of waistline against height produced a more accurate prediction of lifespan.

People with the highest waist-to-height ratio, whose waistlines measured 80 per cent of their height, lived 17 years fewer than average.

Keeping your waist circumference to less than half of your height can help prevent the onset of conditions like stroke, heart disease and diabetes and add years to life, researchers said.

For a 6ft man, this would mean having a waistline smaller than 36in, while a 5ft 4in woman should have a waist size no larger than 32in.

While I find no good reason to go by these arbitrary standards (and they are arbitrary and very unscientific), it is refreshing to see the shift.  I’ll grant that obese people will not live long, healthy lives but at the same time, these measurements are too general and take little consideration for family history and many other factors.

And of course you won’t live forever, no matter how much you exercise and eat right.