TMI on my BMI

Picture of me taken on December 29, 2010. Dangerously close to obesity according to my BMI.

Apparently, I’m fat. My employer runs an annual health check-up program and I just got the results in today.  Everything passes with flying colors except for one thing.  The website that analyzes my results and makes suggestions recommended that I watch my weight because, according to the BMI, I am close to being overweight. 

This isn’t unusual. Every year they run these tests and every year my weight is within a pound or two of 175. Being 6’1” you can imagine (and see above pic) that most of my weight is of the vertical variety. The nurses running the body fat tests are always surprised at how low my body fat is.  This year, body fat was actually slightly higher this year as the tests were closer to Christmas (previous years were before Thanksgiving) so I have been caught carrying a few extra cookies.  However it is still very low at 9%. So when they warn me that I am balancing on the precipice of humpty-dumpty land you can imagine my difficulty in taking their warnings seriously.  

The problem with BMI is that it is a formula based on average body composition.  The only inputs are your height (which decreases with age) and your weight.  Already, alarms are sounding!  If your height decreases with age and your weight stays the same, it is possible that you can go from “normal” to “overweight” or “obese”.  And what about someone that is fairly active?  Whether through work or through an exercise program? In those cases the BMI is totally worthless.  Yet the health industry seems to think it is an important measure of one’s overall health.  It is so important that even some life insurance policies will be cheaper if your BMI is between 19 and 25.  Which is interesting because studies have shown that people in the “normal” BMI range (18.5 to 24.9) have a higher risk of death from cardiovascular disease than the “overweight” range.

My analysis from this latest health check warns me to get active because my average of 11 hours high-intensity riding a week is not nearly enough to keep me from obesity. I guess all I can say to BMI warnings is, whatever.  To the people who still insist on using a formula created in the 1800’s by a mathematician –that’s right, not a doctor, not a nutritionist, not even a personal trainer, he was a mathematician- come out and join me on a hill pounding ride for a couple of hours and at the end I will stand straddling my bike while you call me fat because you can't manage to gasp enough air into your burning lungs to say the word "obese".