A new study warns that by 2050, nearly 60% of adults and one-third of children globally will be overweight or obese without governmental intervention. Published in the Lancet, the study analysed data…
It’s not actually useful on a population level because it’s at best a very inaccurate measurement of a serious oversimplification of a very complex system. It also actively causes harm on the individual level through healthcare providers and insurance.
It’s an oversimplification, yes. It’s a deliberate one, designed to be easy to collect at a population-level.
It’s a bit like turning down the resolution a whole lot on an image - you lose details to the point where there’s a whole lot you can no longer tell from the image, but some parts of the whole picture can still be interpreted.
In the case of BMI, this is stuff at a statistical level, the one where you need thousands of people and multiple percentage points to actually be able to tell stuff.
It also actively causes harm on the individual level through healthcare providers and insurance.
I don’t disagree. It’s not made for this purpose and should not be used for it either. A larger solution of getting rid of private health insurance as a system is what I would recommend, of course.
Weight stigma causes worse health outcomes
It’s horrible that this has to be added as a caveat, but I’ll add it anyway:
It’s not ok to be mean to people on account of what they weigh
They don’t need to be athletes to be healthy but overweight. They just need to not be a starving peasant in the 1800s to be overweight by BMI calculations.
BMI is only useful at a population-level, and certainly not for athletes.
Most people are not particularly athletic, though.
It’s not actually useful on a population level because it’s at best a very inaccurate measurement of a serious oversimplification of a very complex system. It also actively causes harm on the individual level through healthcare providers and insurance.
Weight stigma causes worse health outcomes: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4381543/
It’s an oversimplification, yes. It’s a deliberate one, designed to be easy to collect at a population-level.
It’s a bit like turning down the resolution a whole lot on an image - you lose details to the point where there’s a whole lot you can no longer tell from the image, but some parts of the whole picture can still be interpreted.
In the case of BMI, this is stuff at a statistical level, the one where you need thousands of people and multiple percentage points to actually be able to tell stuff.
I don’t disagree. It’s not made for this purpose and should not be used for it either. A larger solution of getting rid of private health insurance as a system is what I would recommend, of course.
It’s horrible that this has to be added as a caveat, but I’ll add it anyway:
It’s not ok to be mean to people on account of what they weigh
They don’t need to be athletes to be healthy but overweight. They just need to not be a starving peasant in the 1800s to be overweight by BMI calculations.