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<h1>Body Mass Index (BMI) Can't Measure Your Overall Health</h1>

Body-Mass index is a ratio of your weight to your height. Too
low of a BMI may indicate that you are underweight - undernourished
or suffering some kind of illness that leads to unintentional
weight loss. Conversely, a higher than normal BMI correlates with
being overweight.

What Conditions Are Associated With High BMI?

Having a high BMI correlates with a higher risk for conditions
including:
<blockquote>-cardiovascular disease
-high blood pressure
-osteoarthritis
-some cancers
-diabetes</blockquote>
But there&#8217;s a limit to how useful the BMI is in telling
you about the state of your health.

So What's The Limit?

David S. is a 40-year-old art director; he weighs 240 pounds and
is 6 foot tall. According to his insurance agent&#8217;s BMI
calculator, David&#8217;s BMI is 32.5, well above the threshold for
obesity. David chuckles as he recounts the story of talking with
his insurance company about insurance: &#8220;Before I went to see
her, she must have thought I was a candidate for a heart attack.
When I visited, she realized that I wasn&#8217;t about to have a
heart attack, but I think she almost did!&#8221;
In his spare time, David is a body builder. He lifts weights
nearly every day, gets regular aerobic exercise in the forms of
bicycling and karate, and eats well-balanced meals emphasizing lean
meats, vegetables and fiber-bearing carbohydrates. Despite his BMI,
his cholesterol levels are healthy, his blood pressure that of an
average 25 year old, and his activity level - well, it&#8217;s
obviously pretty good.
While we&#8217;re not all like David, there are two take-home
lessons from his story:
<blockquote>1) BMI may not be a good indicator of your health and
fitness.
2) A given BMI number suggests that you might be at risk for
certain diseases, but it doesn&#8217;t guarantee
it.</blockquote>
A high BMI does not mean that you have diabetes, cancer, or high
blood pressure, nor that you are destined to have one of those
conditions. It suggests that you may be at risk, but that&#8217;s
all.
Because it presumes a certain ratio of body-fat to muscle, it
may not accurately reflect whether you have a healthy metabolism,
what condition your heart is in, and how you look and feel.
So what indicators should you consider in addition to BMI in
trying to determine your state of fitness and what changes you
might want to take in your activities and diet? Other risk factors
for diseases like diabetes and cancer include:
<blockquote>-diet
-physical activity
-body fat
-circumference
-blood pressure
-blood sugar
-blood cholesterol
-family history
-gender/ethnicity</blockquote>
Just like BMI, no one of these indicators guarantees that you
will have, or avoid having, a particular condition. David&#8217;s
father has a genetic condition that leads to very high cholesterol;
David has no cholesterol issues at all. In contrast, another
designer, Laurie M., has no family history of high cholesterol, and
yet she been taking medication for high cholesterol since she
turned 20.

Balance Is Key:

So how do you take all these factors into consideration in
designing an exercise and nutritional program that&#8217;s right
for you? The key is balance. If your BMI is high and you have other
risk factors indicating risk for particular diseases, then work
with your health care provider to change your exercise type and
level, modify your diet, and add medications if needed to reduce
the chances of developing the disease in question. If your BMI is
high, but your other indicators suggest that you&#8217;re healthy,
it may be a matter of your comfort - do you like how you feel? are
you able to accomplish the activities that matter to you? If so,
check with your physician to see whether maintaining your current
weight and diet might be just what you need!
Calle EE, et al. &#8220;BMI and mortality in prospective cohort
of U.S. adults&#8221; New England Journal of Medicine, Volume 341
pages 1097&#8211;1105, 1999 Centers for Disease Control,
&#8220;Using the BMI-for-Age Charts,&#8221;
http://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/dnpa/growthcharts/training/modules/module1/text,
2005
Garrow JS and Webster J. &#8220;Quetelet's index (W/H2) as a
measure of fatness,&#8221; International Journal of Obesity Volume
9 pages147&#8211;153, 1985 Gallagher D, et al. How useful is BMI
for comparison of body fatness across age, sex and ethnic groups?
American Journal of Epidemiology Volume143, p 228&#8211;239,
1999
National Institutes of Health, &#8220;Clinical Guidelines on the
Identification, Evaluation, and Treatment of Overweight and Obesity
in Adults,&#8221; 1998

<div>Author Info 
Copyright (C) Shoppe.MD and Ian Mason, 2004-2005
Ian Mason, owner of PhenForum.com, your source for 
<a target="_new" href="http://www.phenforum.com">weight loss
support</a>, diet advice and exercise tips for your long term
health.
Ian is a fat-to-fit student of health, weight loss, exercise,
and several martial arts; maintaining several websites in an effort
to help provide up-to-date and helpful information for other who
share his interests in health of body and mind.
</div>

Article Source: <a href="http://www.innoarticles.com" title="Your #1 Source For Quality Articles">InnoArticles.com</a>
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