Recently grade schools all over the country have taken BMI (body mass index) measurements of children to determine who is or is not over (or under) weight (yet many of these schools continue to feed their children pizza, cakes and junk for school meals).
The National Institute of Health (NIH) says:
Well, no. BMI is NOT, by any means, a measurement of body fat. It is a rough estimate of how over weight you might be. It’s got nothing to do with the actual amount of fat you have on your body. And this definition comes from the NIH! Wow.
Remember what Mark Twain said? "Be careful of what you read in health books. A misprint just might kill you."
Anyhow, BMI is measured by taking the child (or adults) weight in pounds multiplied by 703 divided by height in inches squared.
To make it simpler, go here to find yours.
BMI Categories:
- Underweight = <18.5
- Normal weight = 18.5-24.9
- Overweight = 25-29.9
- Obesity = BMI of 30 or greater
When I took mine, it had me at 25.4 meaning, I’m on my merry old way to obesity.
Here I am:
Hardly on my way to obesity.
What the BMI doesn’t take into account is muscle or lean tissue. The more you have the heavier you are and thus the measurement becomes just a guesstimate.
In other words, a male power lifter who looks chunky on the outside will definitely have a BMI making him in need of the NIH fat police, yet, his actual body fat amount or percentage will be quite low.
For kids I can see the value – sort of. Most kids are not into weight lifting so there will be few if any gross errors when using the BMI on kids.
And it’s too bad more obese kids aren’t into strength training because scientific research clearly shows that strength training is by far the best activity an obese child can engage in to both reverse obesity and to beef up a child who is too lean and frail. We train many kids at Serious Strength with amazing results.
Aiming for a healthy weight is NOT the issue (as the NIH claims). Aiming for a healthy body fat percentage is.
