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April 4, 2005
Final Fatties Flunk Government's BMI
The NCAA championship game will be played tonight by some of America's finest and ... fattest? Yep. Nearly half -- 14 out of 30 -- of the student athletes that make up the University of Illinois and University of North Carolina basketball programs are officially fat, according to the government's bogus Body-Mass Index (BMI). As we've explained before, the BMI calculation uses only height and weight, while ignoring an individual's muscle mass. And it's that flawed standard which is responsible for the myth that 65 percent of Americans are "overweight" or "obese." So, just like tonight's super-athletic champs, millions of Americans have been needlessly flunked into the gordo ghetto.
The NCAA championship game will be played tonight by some of America's finest and ... fattest? Yep. Nearly half -- 14 out of 30 -- of the student athletes that make up the University of Illinois and University of North Carolina basketball programs are officially fat, according to the government's bogus Body-Mass Index (BMI). As we've explained before, the BMI calculation uses only height and weight, while ignoring an individual's muscle mass. And it's that flawed standard which is responsible for the myth that 65 percent of Americans are "overweight" or "obese." So, just like tonight's super-athletic champs, millions of Americans have been needlessly flunked into the gordo ghetto. Leading experts know the BMI has serious limitations. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention admits that the BMI misclassifies many people, noting: "Overweight may or may not be due to increases in body fat. It may also be due to an increase in lean muscle." The CDC even offers a handy graphic demonstration of two invididuals who have the same height, the same weight, and the same BMI:
To learn more about obesity myths, click here. To learn how the BMI has miscast other top athletes, click here, here, here, and here.
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