My Journey With Health And Fitness – Is BMI Still A Valid Measurement?

Well, it looks like on top of my new volunteer gig that I will be starting in November (walking dogs for local seniors) I am picking up a new client. This one came a bit out of the blue but a friend gave a charity (involved in the labour movement) my name as a potential bookkeeper. I have now sent them my proposal and am just waiting for their Board to approve me. I’m pretty sure it will go through as I looked at who was on the Board and the vast majority of them know me. What this means though is I’m going to have to stop doing any additional volunteer work as my time is going to be pretty much maxed out.

There was a great article in the local daily paper today about why BMI may become irrelevant. It started with a discussion with an orthopedic surgeon who talked about how the standard is not to do surgery on people with a BMI (Body Mass Index which measures your weight compared to your height, a standard since 1972) over 40 (extremely obese). The surgeon felt that this is not a proper measure and other experts acknowledge that BMI does not take into account the overall health of an individual nor does the protocol look at the risk in conjunction with the pain and immobility the patient might be experiencing. This particular surgeon was willing to perform surgeries on persons with a high BMI as long as the risk assessment merited the surgery.

The article went on to discuss how BMI does not take into account other important health factors such as where fat is located, cholesterol levels, blood fat levels, etc all of which are indicators of metabolization levels. Instead, some experts feel that with all of these things doctors should start looking at the WHR. WHR is waist to hip ration (studies have shown carrying more belly fat puts you at higher risk for diabetes and heart disease to name a few) which is simply waist size divided by hip size. The recommendation is for the ratio to be 0.90 or less in men and 0.85 or less in women. While the article acknowledged it is unlikely BMI is going away anywhere soon as it is so entrenched in the medical system, doctors are encouraged to look at other measurements to determine overall health.

While I enjoyed reading this article at the end I thought great, another thing for my paranoid mind to obsess about. Even though I am struggling to lose the pounds I have gained since my husband retired (yes, I still like to blame him) my weight is pretty good and my BMI shows my weight as normal. As I started worrying about this I decided to calculate my WHR and turns out it is in the low risk category. Ok, apparently it is actually one less thing to worry about.