Derk <
[email protected]> wrote in message news:<
[email protected]>...
> Robert Chung wrote:
> > So you're saying newtons aren't a good metric for force?
> This is a scientific formaula, that you can prove over and over again.
>
> BMI isn't a given formula based on scientific evidence.It has a lot of fuzzyness: your BMI is OK
> if it's between 20 and 25. Why those numbers? Why not between 19.9 and 25.2 for example?
>
> Greets, Derk
Dear Derk,
You've pointed out an obvious problem with BMI. Unlike Newton-meters, it doesn't really tell us as
much as people believe.
BMI unquestionably defines a precise and scientific ratio between our weight and our height.
So what?
Equally precise and scientific ratios can be calculated between our weight and our shoe size, wrist-
elbow distance, pelvic width, femur length, shoulder breadth, and--well, let's not get into personal
areas where the ladies assure us that size doesn't matter, anyway.
For all its spurious air of precision, our BMI fluctuates daily, since we can lose an inch of height
during the day as our spinal discs compress or a few pounds of weight through processes too terrible
to contemplate.
Even when accurately calculated, BMI says nothing about whether the mass being related to height is
composed of fat, muscle, or bone. If you have a high BMI, all that it tells you is that you have
more mass than average--possibly fat, perhaps muscle, maybe heavier bones, or any combination of
the three.
An extremely fit athlete may have a low BMI (marathon runners) or a high BMI (heavyweight boxers).
And they may match the BMI's of sedentary office workers in their fifties.
Height in basketball players isn't much more useful than BMI. Height can help, but scouts are
painfully familiar with tall fellows who can't play basketball well enough to make the junior
varsity squad.
Greets,
Carl Fogel