Body Mass Index (BMI) Is Nothing to Take Seriously

Nintendo recently released the Wii Fit, which of course is designed to give you a way to have an at home workout and a general fun experience. Along the way to making yourself fit it tracks many things including your progress, what you've accomplished and your Body Mass Index. Telling someone their Body Mass Index isn't always a good idea, especially when you tell a 10 year old that she is obese. Typically, 10 year olds who are a bit hefty have to deal with classroom ridicule, automating that ridicule is something they just don't need.

The funny part about all of this is how irrelevant and how dated BMI measurements are. I personally am 5 foot 8 (stupid mother gave me the short gene) and somewhere between 165 and 170 pounds. I go to the gym 4 or 5 times a week, play softball / bball / flag football something year round. I consider myself to be in good shape. Other than my alcohol intake and the occasional shitty dining on the weekend I eat healthy as well. Yet when you plug in my BMI, I am considered overweight.

So lets take a look at some athletes to see how they stack up and just how poorly their bodies are.

Lisa Leslie: 6'5, 170: 20.2 Normal
Tayshaun Prince: 6'9, 215: 23.0 Normal
Diana Taurasi: 6'0, 172: 23.3 Normal
Roger Federer: 6'1 177: 23.3 Normal
Tiger Woods: 6'1, 185: 24.4 Normal (I have a difficult time believing either of Tiger or Federer's listed weight)
Michael Jordan: 6'6 216: 25.0 Overweight
Kevin Garnett: 6'11, 253: 25.8 Overweight
Lebron James: 6'8, 240: 26.4 Overweight
Tom Brady: 6'4 225: 27.4 Overweight
David Eckstein: 5'7 177: 27.7 Overweight (That 177 might be a lie)
David Ortiz: 6'4, 230: 28.0 Overweight (That 230 might be a lie)
Alex Rodriguez: 6'3 225: 28.1 Overweight
John Daly: 5'11 220: 30.7 Obese (220 in his dreams)
Shaq: 7'1 325: 31.6 Obese
Glenn Dorsey: 6'3 303: 38.9 Obese

Ok, maybe John Daly is obese, but Lebron, Jordan, KG and Arod are all overweight? That's a pretty laughable measurement system right there.

Lou Holtz is the Homer / Annoyingly Delusional

As my buddy Joe and I always joke, if Notre Dame was suiting up against an all Jesus team, aka a team made up of 55 Sons of God, Lou Holtz would probably still pick Notre Dame to win by a touchdown. So of course this weekend when I'm watching Sportscenter and they have him and fellow old man Corso making predictions, Lou picks ND to beat Michigan. Not that big of a deal, Michigan is a big question mark this year, but of course than Lou says that Notre Dame will win 11 games this year. This is the same Notre Dame that lost to a service academy last year. And just when you thought the douchy homerism was going to end ESPN asks which BCS school is going to be the biggest surprise team in the country. Any guesses to whom it was? I'll give you a clue it was another team he coached. If you guessed South Carolina you would be a winner. Next up on Lou's prediction watch, the Jets win the Superbowl, NC St. wins the ACC, Arkansas dominates the SEC West, Minnesota wins the Big...

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Guest Post: Thoughts on Sabathia Signing

I asked Grutt what his thoughts were on the Sabathia signing and I thought his response pretty much nailed it. So here it is. I don’t know. Every year I get a little more disenchanted with baseball. Yea, it’s great we signed the top pitching free agent. But we were supposed to. No team was even in the ballpark of the Yankees offer yet they still needed to jump from the already ridiculous price of $140 million to $160 million to close the deal. Now I hear we are going to sign more pitchers who will also get large contracts and the position player gaps are still glaring. Each new, large contract just adds to the feeling that the Yanks are supposed to win it all. “I think we have a good chance this year.” That is a lost feeling. If they don’t win I’ll wonder why, like there has to be some other reason besides that it’s a sport you can never predict how things will work out and some years just aren’t yours to be won. If they win I will be pleasantly smug. It gets a little more...

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Comments

Anonymous said…

The military still uses this. I went in to MEPS at 5'7" 166 and if I weighed 4 more pounds I was ineligible for military service. This is laughable; at the time I was running the two mile test consistently under 12 minutes, could squat 1.5x my body weight, bench 1.25x my body weight, and deadlift 2x my body weight.

Then after all the tests they told me that they wouldn't let me into an engineering unit but they would let me be a humvee gunner. No thanks, Uncle Sam.

8:11 AM

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