Any person who has been to a physician is aware of what a BMI--or Body Mass Index--is. BMI is used in the medical community to measure a person's body fat based on their height and their weight. This method of measurement was invented in the 1830s by mathematician and astronomer Lambert Adolphe Jacques Quetelet. What Quetelet really invented was a quick formula that the government of Belgium could use to measure the general population's level of body fat in order to properly allocate resources. However, Quetelet himself said that it should not be used to measure the actual level of body fat of a person.
Because the method was invented by a mathematician, not a physician or biologist, it is very scientifically inaccurate. For starters, it only measures the weight of a person, so it does not take into account bone density or muscle mass, so a pound of muscle is measured the same as a pound of fat. Famously, this has measured Olympic athletes as overweight or even obese. Because it was invented in the 1830s for a population that lead generally inactive lives, it discounts muscle mass entirely. This can pose a problem for those with a higher muscle mass. In addition, Quetelet's home country of Belgium at the time was majority caucasian, so the formula doesn't account for differences in bone densities between races. For example, when measured with the BMI formula South Asian's appear to have a 4% higher body fat on average; however, South Asian's tend to have a biological propensity towards abdominal obesity, meaning they have a higher density of body fat in their abdomens which is naturally apart of their bodies and cannot be lost via diet or exercise.
One study in 2016 found that 54 million people were classified as obese in America, but this population actually showed low amounts of cardiovascular illness such as heart disease and high blood pleasure. By contrast, 21 million people determined to be "normal" according to their BMI actually showed high amounts of unhealthy cardiometabolic measures.
According to the study, many people classified as obese have no symptoms of being obese based on their cardiometabolic measures, do you think that if we used a different method besides BMI for detecting obesity fewer people would be classified as obese?
Do you think BMI should continue to be used? If so, why?
Why do you think physicians continue to use this method despite it being inaccurate both statistically and medically?
Replies
Intersting topic and well written Eden! I do think you could have replied a few moe times to people on page one as most comments were done yesterday morning.
I feel like we should not keep the BMI system because it measures our amount of body fat inaccurately. It also wasn't even made by a scientist or physician. I don't know why they still use this because we have smart scientist that can figure out a different solution to this instead of still relying on a mathematician who made a bad measurment system.
In my opinion, I do not think we should keep using the BMI because it is not giving people an accurate answer. I think that the world is modern enough that doctors and scientists can easily come up with a better solution than using BMI. I think that they continue to use this method because that is all they know. I do not think they have thought about changing this method.
I don't believe that BMI should continue to be used. Weight =/= healthiness and a basic division problem cannot determine the body fat of a person. Even if a person were to have more body fat and less muscle, that doesn't dictate how healthy they are. A person can be a healthy weight but still not be eating enough. What you eat can matter more than how much you eat, so doctors should take a look at each patient's diet, possible deficiencies, and possible heart problems to label someone as obese. I think BMI is still used because it has become the norm.
I do not think we should continue to use it because it is not giving us an accurate answer. I think with how advanced we are now we should be able to make it to we have a correct reading for bmi. I think they continue to use it because they are used to it and we have been using it for a long time. I think it would be kind of hard to get every hospital and clinics to switch over to a new system.
Doctors should not be allowed to use BMI. It is completely wrong. Doctors need to find a new way of finding this out. The way they test for this is not true to our bodies anymore we need to find a new way for this. Doctors still use this because this is all we know how to do they have to find a new way.
I think our world is modern enough that doctors could easily come up with a better alternative than BMI. With the advancements that have been made so far there is no excuse to keep using the same outdated methods. Medicine is supposed to grow and move forward, and using BMI today is keeping us from moving forward. I see no reason for doctors to keep using this method.
I don't think that BMI should continue to be used by medical professionals. Many of the athletes at our school would be considered overweight on this scale, even though they are very fit and healthy people. I don't know why physicians continue to use the scale, but I'm sure they have some reason for still using it.
I liked your point about how the BMI doesn't take lifestyle into consideration in regards to athletes being "overweight" on the BMI scale. It also doesn't take genetics that may cause someone to be heavier or lighter into consideration. It's a very specific system for something so broad and subjective as weight and health. Physicians probably still use it because it's easy, convenient and what's been taught to them.
I don't think that BMI is accurate and that we shouldn't keep using it but we do need some method to detect obesity. I think that physicians still use it because we don't have another accurate way to show this. Someone needs to find a way to do this.
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