I think the problem with the BMI, as most people perceive it, is that it’s a “One-size-fits-all” metric, that doesn’t take into account gender, build, body fat percentage, etc…
For example, my 0% body fat weight as measured by a couple of things (scale, calipers), is right around 180 lbs.
The guidelines I’ve found say that for 20-39 year old men, a body fat percentage of 8% to 19% is healthy.
Guess what… if I put in 10% body fat onto that 180 lbs, the BMI says I’m overweight, when in fact, I’d look terrific, have a 34-35 inch waist, and be fairly defined.
Now in fact, I’m nowhere close to 10% bodyfat, but I can see how the BMI has made itself a lot of enemies with the catch-all approach that it takes.
When I was losing weight I found BMI counters that factored in age, gender and bone structure. When they said I was fat it was because I was fat and there was no point kidding myself about it.
Sure, if you dig around, you can probably find an online calculator to tell you anything.
I’m talking about the “official” NIH one though, height and weight are the only things it considers, which obviously doesn’t account for the difference between say… 6’1" and 180 lbs at 5% body fat, and 6’1" and 180 lbs at 10% body fat. Their kind of dumb-ass blurb about it being inaccurate for athletes or skinny people doesn’t really help much.
Does the obesity rate in US indicate a general malaise in the electorate? Can we use the EU statistics to predict the future effect of US electoral malaise?
Ever see the Youtube of some place in Texas where they serve chicken fried bacon? Everyone in the place looks like they’re near death from cardiac arrest.
Have you guys been to NEast Asia? Honestly, I’m curious as to whether the “official” BMI can be used on us orientals. If so, I’m pretty sure the majority of people I know/see on the streets could be classified as underweight!
Coming home to America is always a surprise. As soon as I get off my plane in Chicago, Los Angeles, Dallas-Fort Worth, etc., my jaw drops at the sheer number of overweight people I see. I’m not trying to be cruel. It’s just that this pervasiveness is completely, overwhelmingly surprising.
I took a vacation to the States a couple of months ago, and I remember sitting at my gate trying to locate a single man in my range of vision who did not have a belly protruding over his belt. I saw, out of the dozens and dozens of men there, four guys who looked fit. Note, though, that I’m not counting teenagers.
Do I think that’s extreme? Yeah, I do. And I get the feeling from my friends and family back home that being overweight is OK. Everyone’s a little overweight after all, right? Everyone in the whole, wide world. Well, except those few billion over in Asia… but everyone knows they eat nothing but cardboard noodles and veggies.
Believe me, it’s hard to recognize just how unhealthy our food is in America until you get a taste for what other people around the world eat. When I visit a Western restaurant here in Seoul, it is ridiculously, absurdly greasy and oily. And it’ll probably be covered in cheese. And Ranch. And bacon.
Not that I don’t like it, but it just overwhelms my systems at this point!
Oh, I forgot to mention something I found interesting here in Korea regarding this subject:
There are several places here in Seoul and around Korea that simply could not service some of my obese American friends/relatives. They wouldn’t fit on the escalator at my grocery store. They wouldn’t be able to squeeze through the rock hallways of one of the famous cavern systems. They’d take up 3 seats on the NKorean Tunnel tours (if they fit at all in the trolley).
Hell, I’ve been in many elevators here that could only fit ONE of my overweight friends/family members. We normally pack quite a few more Koreans in there!
A question: my brother, who has lived in Korea, has a Korean wife, speaks the language fluently and frequently visits there, has mentioned that a lot of Korean women are obsessed with being thin and don’t eat nearly enough. His wife concurs. (Both are healthily slim themselves.) Do you have an opinion on that?
Sure, it’s a common meme just like anything else. Are Korean girls in general heavily pressured to stay thin, perhaps to an unhealthy extent? Maybe. Are Korean guys? Probably not.
I’ve heard it repeated plenty of times as some kind of excuse as to why Asians aren’t overweight on average. As though being overweight is the norm. When, at face value, I don’t have any data supporting the assertion that they’re starving themselves to death in order to be slim.
What I do have data on is things like in the US 25% of white children were overweight in 2001, 33% of African-American and Hispanic children, and eight out of 10 of those over 25 in America are overweight. I don’t think we need to justify Korean thinness by attributing it to unnatural eating patterns.
Koreans believe a lot of things, with or without evidence, just like every other person on Earth. Heck, to generalize, socially Koreans tend to accept a LOT of things that don’t necessarily have any grounding in reality.
I don’t doubt that eating disorders among women are relatively common in Korea. However, I don’t think it explains the overall healthiness of the population as a whole, nor even the average slimness in the general population.
Believe me, I’ve seen Korean girls peck at dishes and only eat a few spoonfuls (and that was their only meal that day), but those girls rarely look healthy to my eye (which was trained in America, admittedly). I don’t think those few are any more relevant than the people with eating disorders in America, though. If we’re relying on anecdotal evidence, then I’d point to my 70 or so co-workers (most of whom are women) who aren’t shy about what they eat.
I’m not trying to defend American obesity “as though being overweight were the norm,” I’m asking a question about Korean habits that I’ve been told about by a Korean woman who presumably would know. If eating disorders are “relatively common” in Korea, that’s what I wanted to know. Thanks for the info.
Ah, I apologize. I didn’t mean for it to sound as though I was focusing on you as if you’d argued that. I was trying to (ham-handedly) address the argument I mentioned.
I feel the same way when I leave Southern California for the South or Midwest which I used to do quite a bit on business. Frankly, it’s fucking appalling. My most recent shock was when I recently went to Disneyland with my girlfriend and her teenage son. We were joking during the drive down that we’d be seeing tons of overweight people but it was worse than I imagined.
I think that there really has been a societal re-set of perceptions with a dash of mutual enabling.
I think it’s more appearance than the number. There’s still a perception that anything over 150 is obese for women. I saw the Scrubs again where Elliot is talking to her mom and says “115” and her mom clearly thinks that’s too high. Sarah Chalke is 5’8" so 115 would put her/character in the <2 percentile, and underweight. And the same number looks different on different people so it’s more about actual size and appearance.
I am always amazed at vintage book covers and pinups and how heavy the women represented are. The first thing that comes to mind: Sweet Valley twins books, early editions.
Believe it or not, it’s the very rare woman who doesn’t know if she’s overweight/obese. In fact, if she’s “normal” there’s a good chance she’s been harassed for being too heavy.
