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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.

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.

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