Who Invented Obesity? How The BMI’s Flawed Diagnostic Prevents You From Staying Healthy
There is a better alternative to Body Mass Index and the concept of obesity
What is New?
The media currently rave about the Body Roundness Index (BRI) as the BMI’s new knock-out replacement. But it’s neither new nor a BMI upgrade. In fact, both are contenders for the Golden Lemon Awards in the category of medicine’s most unhelpful diagnostics and screening tools.
Why it Matters
Prodded by the industry that earns the most from it, medicine is wedded to the idea of an easy diagnostic metric for the complex condition of obesity. But neither BMI, BRI, or any of their more than 10 siblings are useful predictors of disease or death. We have a far better metric to detect unhealthy metabolic signatures in normal-weight persons or rule them out in their heavier peers.
Your Takeaway
An upgrade to the BMI metric in a downloadable interactive Excel file, an understanding of why BMI and obesity are practically useless as guides to your personal health, and directions on how you can change all that for the better.
