B.M.I. Can Predict Health Risks

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From Your Health Journal…..”The New York Times is always a great resource for many health related articles. I strongly recommend your visiting their site to read many of their fabulous articles. Today’s review discusses a recent article in the New York Times regarding BMI predicting health risks. BMI stands for Body Mass Index. It takes a person’s height and weight measurements – and lets someone know if their weight falls within a healthy range. The problem, some experts feel it does not take into account an individual who may have more lean body mass or even someone who is hydrated with liquids. But, many scientists do feel the BMI is accurate, and should not be written off so easily. Usually, if someone is in the 85 percentile on the BMI chart, they are considered overweight. In the 95 percentile, they would be considered obese. Please visit the New York Times site (link below) to read the complete article.”

What is your BMI – Thank you to the BMI Club for their graphic below.



From the article…..

Some scientists believe that body mass index, a calculation involving the ratio of height to weight, is an inaccurate measure of obesity-related risks because it does not account for body shape, fat mass and lean mass. But a new study finds that B.M.I. works at least as well as other body measurements, and better than some, to predict certain health problems.

Researchers gathered data on B.M.I., body fat percentage, waist circumference and waist-to-height ratio on 12,294 men and women. Then the team calculated how well each measure predicted various elements of the metabolic syndrome — high blood pressure, elevated fasting glucose, reduced HDL (or “good”) cholesterol and raised LDL (“bad” cholesterol). The results were published online last month in Obesity Research & Clinical Practice.

B.M.I. and body fat percentage were the best predictors of raised blood pressure, while waist circumference and waist-to-height ratio were good predictors of elevated fasting glucose and reduced HDL cholesterol.

To read the full article…..Click here