ISU Bengal

Issue date: 4/23/08 Section: Opinion

If you have ever been in a doctor's office or opened a magazine, chances are you have been exposed to some form of the body mass index.

The BMI, which purports to show what your ideal weight should be, is not what it seems. The Metropolitan Life Insurance Company designed this chart in 1959, based on a mathematical equation that has nothing to do with actual health or mortality rates. The Metropolitan Life Insurance Company wanted to make money and figured they could charge people in the overweight and obese categories more if they had something they could show to justify the higher charges. No one would know, this based on how the public is bombarded with its presence today.

According to the BMI chart, many professional athletes are designated obese because their muscle mass weighs more than fat. Lance Armstrong was classified as overweight when he competed in the 1993 Tour de France. The chart also does not take into account frame size, muscularity, gender, or age. In other words, the same chart is used whether you are a man, woman or child. In 1998, the Surgeon General adjusted the BMI chart, lowering the range for the average weight, placing over 25 million people from the average category to the overweight category.

The truth is we do not all look the same and we were never meant to. Achieving a magical weight does not guarantee you immunity from death or give you a longer life. Doctors and other health professionals have been taught for decades that the BMI chart is accurate, even though there is no proof that weighing too much causes premature death.

During a class assignment, Sammy Gravis and I designed our own, more accurate, BMI chart. This chart was designed in hopes that it will combat the low self-esteem, eating disorders and other body image problems that people face. These problems can result from being attacked from every angle with pressure of the mainstream culture telling people what they are supposed to look like.

Students will see copies of the adjusted BMI charts around campus in the coming weeks. Hopefully, students will be able to understand that they are perfect the way they are. I hope that each of you know that your beauty, good looks and abilities are not tied to a number on the scale. If body issues are something you are struggling with, please contact the Eating Disorders 24-hour hotline 1-800-382-2832, the Counseling and Testing Center 282-2130 or the ISU Health Center 282-2330.

Facts obtained from "Fat Politics: The Real Story Behind America's Obesity Epidemic" by J. Eric Oliver.

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