Why BMI Might Not Be the Best Barometer of Health

Your body mass index (BMI) is calculated based on your height and weight. It has been historically used to gauge how healthy a person is because it helps to determine if you are overweight or within the recommended range for your height and gender. For years, doctors and insurance companies have relied on a person's BMI as an indicator of their overall health. The presumption has been that if a person falls in the overweight category for BMI, then they are also unhealthy. New evidence now suggests that this is not always the case and can be a sloppy way of measuring someone's health. In fact, new research shows that more than half of U.S. adults who are technically overweight on the BMI scale are actually quite healthy. 

New studies suggest that we have been improperly equating a BMI score above the normal range as unhealthy based in part on our cultural biases towards overweight people. The research further suggests that it may actually be riskier for overweight people to try to diet in order to get their BMI score to fall within the normal range. There are some diseases, such as osteoporosis, for which being slightly overweight can actually mean that adults have a reduced rate of getting the disease. For other diseases, such as heart disease or stroke, it can be far more dangerous to be overweight. 

Rather than encouraging people to drop the weight at all costs, these new studies suggest that a more holistic view of a person's health is necessary. By fixating on a person's BMI score, a doctor may ignore that a patient is otherwise very healthy. If a doctor recommends that a person lose weight in order to be at a certain range within the BMI scale of normal weight, then that person may diet unnecessarily. This could end up resulting in overexertion and injuries as well as nutritional deficiencies. Proponents of the recent studies on the flaws within a BMI score argue that doctors are giving misguided advice to patients in regards to the need to undertake diet and exercise in order to change a number on the scale. 

Instead of focusing on a patient's weight as simply a number, supporters of the new BMI study suggest that doctors should be teaching patients how to live a healthy lifestyle in general. This means that instead of focusing on cutting calories and controlling portion sizes, adults should be much more concerned with eating the right amount of nutrients for them. Also, while physical activity for adults is important for a variety of reasons, it should not necessarily be prioritized over other healthy choices. For instance, if a patient is pushed to exercise with the sole purpose of losing weight, they may become easily disenchanted with the results and be less likely to live a generally active lifestyle. Instead, patients should be encouraged by their doctors to stay active for the simple sake of enjoying their quality of life. For instance, walking outdoors as a way to enjoy time outside and clear your head of stress can be a much more important goal than simply burning calories.