I was reading Oprah's magazine when I was waiting to get my hair cut. And there was a short piece on the BMI and how it's not a good indicator. And that there are people who fall under "normal" who are extremely unhealthy with high blood pressure, cholesterol, and body fat. And "obese"people who are way healthier.

The article used two women as eamples, one is "obese", but she works out, she passes every stress test with flying colors, her blood work is great. The other woman is "normal", except she started feeling bad and did some blood work, which came back. And then a body fat test. She had 30% body fat, no muscle tone, and poor cardiovascular health. But if you just went by the BMI and her looks peole would say she is healthy.

YES - this is it exactly. One of the local TV stations - which I used to watch for their news - is running a campaign to fight childhood obesity. The spots for it that come on have one of their anchors (an attractive, very thin woman) come on and talk about the dangers and then say that the first step is finding your child's BMI ... go tp their web site and get the info.

So - the BMI is unreliable for adults, I've read that it's even more so for children (growth spurts anyone?), and you've got this campaign that's pushing the BMI as the primary criterion. argh

Hoover Organization article in two words: Times change.

Is this before or after they are a-changing?

To suggest that the American obsession with health food began in the 1970's is flat-out ridiculous.

Yep. I'm sure John Harvey Kellogg would have something to say to that.

Health is definitely a moral issue, and it's fucking nauseating.

Yes. I have heard far too many women (and it's almost always women) say things like, "Oh, I was sooooo bad today. I ate a cookie!"

Right. What an awful person that makes you. Right up there Mugabe and Pol Pot.

I couldn't get through that piece, either. I made it all the way to the phrase "pro-abortion". Anyone who phrases something that way has nothing of interest to me.

I don't mind pushing health as a societal virtue. Nor exercise and activity. However, I think the BMI pimping is wrong-headed and counterproductive.

I'm not sure about the griping about people with workout bags. This sort of falls in the same category (to me) as complaining about people getting on the bus with their noisy and annoying children. It's not a virtue for everybody to be hermetically sealed within their own bubble of responsibility. More is required than that to make a democracy (or any society) function. Certainly dealing with and tolerating the annoyance of other people's choices.

Are people who workout smugly superior and judgmental? I'm not sure. That seems like a broad generalization. But we've got some actuaries here who can probably lay out the insurance odds of what really affects your longevity and quality of life. I'm not sure how they factor weight into their tables, but I'm pretty sure they do.

There are just too many jokes to make.

Thank you for resisting. I do not take jokes about my husband lightly.

Gronk. Back in LA now heading to my car. I need to be at the theatre in a few hours. I is tired.

(An aside: when I started losing weight back in December-ish, someone at work said "Wow -- you're losing weight! You look great!" And I said that I had switched to a new antidepressant that gave me knifey stomach pain and made it hard to eat anything, plus I had the bad bad bad stomach flu. Her reply? "Keep it up!" Uh, keep up the knifey stomach pain and getting so sick I have to go to the ER, just to fucking lose weight? What is wrong with people?)

A friend of mine had that conversation repeatedly while she was doing CHEMO. Seriously, people.

"I'm in chemo"

"Well you look GREAT"

And for the record, in case anyone is wondering, she did NOT look great. She was deffinately thinner. She was also weak and grey and had big circles under her eyes. It almost looked like she was being systematically poisoned juuust enough to kill certain cells but not so much as to kill all of them (i.e. her).