In one of my posts, a couple of months back, I wrote that “Body Fat % [...] is a much better indicator of a person’s fitness levels than the BMI (which are often subjective depending on a person’s frame-size or how active his lifestyle is)” and this is very much true. Think of a well built, muscular person: just using his body mass index would be a poor way to judge his health when most of his weight is muscle.
Recently, an article I had tagged in del.icio.us titled “‘BMI’ a Bust for Predicting Heart Risk” expounded the same theory that:
BMI, a ratio of weight to height — proved to be a bust for predicting death from heart disease in an analysis of 40 previously reported studies involving 250,000 patients with heart disease followed for an average of four years. The seemingly paradoxical findings do not mean that carrying excess weight is good for heart patients, researchers say. But they do suggest that better ways of measuring obesity are needed.
The finding that overweight patients did not die as often and had fewer heart-related problems than normal-weight patients was more surprising. But the Mayo researchers say the answer may lie in muscle mass. Since muscle weighs more than fat, it is possible that many of the people in the study who were considered overweight, with BMIs between 25 and 29.9, were really fitter with more muscle than the patients with lower BMIs. If this was the case, it would stand to reason that they would have fewer heart problems.
-Via WebMD
While obesity (BMI greter than 30) has long been understood to be a leading cause of mortality, the same could not be said of being overweight. Yesterday, however, the New England Journal of Medicine published a report titled “Overweight, Obesity, and Mortality in a Large Prospective Cohort of Persons 50 to 71 Years Old” (Abstract, Original Article(PDF)) which concludes that even being overweight (as measured by having a BMI between 25.0 and 29.9) is indeed associated with an increased risk of death.
The 10-year study of more than 500,000 U.S. adults found that those who were just moderately overweight in their fifties were 20 percent to 40 percent more likely to die in the next decade. Another study involving more than 1 million Korean adults, also being published in this week’s New England Journal of Medicine, produced similar results.
The studies, both released yesterday, were aimed at helping resolve a long debate over whether the millions of Americans who are not obese but are nevertheless considered overweight are at significant risk.
-Via Washington Post
The study was conducted in the U.S. by the National Cancer Institute which surveyed 527,265 men and women aged 50 to 71 about their health and lifestyles, including their diet and physical activity, as well as their height and weight, including how much they weighed when they were 50.
After a decade, the researchers found that those who were moderately overweight when they were 50 were at significantly elevated risk of dying prematurely, and those who were obese were two to three times as likely. Just being overweight was not nearly as dangerous, but it still boosted the risk by 20 to 40 percent, the study found.
The findings were welcomed by public health and obesity experts as powerful new evidence that people should do whatever they can to maintain a healthy weight.
“The take-home message is that if you are not obese but just overweight, it’s still a good idea to lose weight,” said Thomas A. Wadden, president of the Obesity Society. “It’s kind of a bummer, but maybe this will help motivate people that it’s time to do something about their weight.”
By eating the Fitness Mantra way and exercising regularly, we can not only keep obesity at bay but also avoid being overweight and reduce significant risk to our health and life.
[tags]overweight, obesity[/tags]
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
I’m glad you posted that quote concerning BMI’s from WebMD…..I’m so tired of all the focus on the BMI when the real focus should be on body fat.
Absolutely.
Even the full article on Washington Post mentions (albeit much later in the article), that there are many skeptics to the BMI theory.
Of course, this particular study is atleast a little more accurate than most others because the article states: “The researchers and others said the findings are particularly noteworthy because of the study’s size and the fact that the analysis controlled for the effects of smoking and illness. That may explain some of the earlier findings — smokers and sick people tend to weigh less.”
Bottomline, body fat % (though difficult to measure) is the single best indicator of fitness, bar none. I hope to find time soon to write more on this topic.
Thanks again. After reading your post I was modivated to write another post on BMI. Its only in draft form right now but it should be up by end of day.
By the way your blog ROCKS!