I am a member of UK Biobank a large-scale research resource, containing in-depth genetic and health information from half a million UK participants.. I expect there are other members on GN.
Recently I was asked to take part in a trial that required me to have all sorts of scans, MRI, bone density etc etc. and yesterday I duly had an interesting time having all sorts of non-invasive tests, including being weighed, body fat assessed etc.
At the end I was given a sheet of paper with some of the results. These informed me that my BMI was, just, in the required approved range. It also told me that 35% of my body was body fat and that means I am also, officially, obese. It seems the approved level of body fat is 25%, which means I am currently a stone overweight.
It has long been known that muscle bound people - athletes and the like, often have BMIs above 25% but as their body fat is low they have no worriess.
What is never mentioned is that, if like me, you have a narrow and slight frame, you can be lulled into a sense of false security in thinking that as your BMI falls in the approved range so you can be sure you are at a healthy weight, yet you may actually be, not just overweight, but obese and need to lose weight to protect your health.
I have suspected this for sometime, I can see the rolls of fat. Also about 30 years ago during a Healthy Life event at work, long before the BMI was used, my body fat was measured roughly with callipers and I was told then that I needed to lose about half a stone.
But it is only yesterday that I finally got figures in writing that prove, quite conclusively, that I fell within the approved BMI for my heigh but that actually, because of the amount of body fat I have, I am also classified as obese - not overweight or the other names used to classify those mildly overweight, but obese.
I am left wondering how many other people there are in country are reassured that their BMI means that their risk of strokes, heart attacks etc is minimised when they are actually anything from overweight to obese and at higher risk of those maladies.
Who and why did anyone ever think that the BMI was a reliable statistic to assess peoples weight and whether it was healthy or not?
Anyway the diet started today and I am determined to lose that extra stone, now I know quite conclusively that I am obeset, whatever BMI and my dress size says.
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