BMI Vindication.
I finally feel somewhat vindicated, albeit much too late, after reading the following article and it’s referenced NPR article. http://lifehacker.com/5308542/skip-body-mass-index-for-health-measurements
When I was in the Navy, I would routinely fail the BMI portion of our PRT (Physical Readiness Test), scoring as ‘Obese’. Why? I was about 5′7, and 235#. I was much more active back then, walking and riding my bicycle everywhere. I was in very good cardiovascular condition, and I was squating around 550-650 depending on the year. I’d calipered at 14%, and displaced (HD – Hydro Displacement) at 13%. My BMI, subtracting neck measurement from waist measurement (16″ Neck, 30″ to 32″ waist) and then looking-up height and weight on a chart, I was routinely told that I was scoring 35% bodyfat or higher, even within days of caliper measurements. Meanwhile, blatantly fat guys with multiple chins and hiding a beach-ball-belly under their uniform shirt would pass or be borderline. Of course, these days, I have my own beachball growing. No sign of my chin multiplying yet. This desk-job is killing me.
Needless to say, I was always jealous of the Air Force bicycle + heart-rate PRT (PFT for them?) method, that actually looks at how your body responds to effort.
I’ll end here. I have a backlog of posts that I haven’t had a chance to post yet. I need to find a better way to journal.