-By Mark Woodgate

It’s a disturbing trend. Many doctors and health professionals continue to use a very antiquated and outdated method for determining your overall health and risk of heart disease. It’s called Body Mass Index or ‘BMI’ for short.

Health insurance companies are even refusing legitimate health claims based on a person’s BMI!

So, what’s the problem with BMI?

BMI is extremely inaccurate as it only takes into account 2 variables - your weight and your height. BMI is calculated by taking your bodyweight and dividing this by your height squared.

Therefore BMI does not take into account important variables such as bone structure and lean muscle mass.

Case in Point:

The absurdity of using the BMI measurement as an accurate indicator was recently demonstrated when members of the All Blacks rugby team were tested using the BMI scale. 

Four all blacks were classified as obese and the rest were overweight, when clearly this is NOT the case!   

The same outcome would also hold true for people who have a naturally larger build, greater bone density and more lean muscle than the average person. (This includes strength athletes, bodybuilders and some sports people.)

The BMI formula was the basis of the recently released OECD report which put New Zealand as the 3^rd fattest nation in the developed world (behind the United States and Mexico)

Although New Zealand may still rank as the 3rd fattest nation, using BMI calls into question the accuracy of this study. In other words it is highly likely that the percentage of people determined to be overweight or obese may be significantly less than the quoted figures. (According to this study, 26.5% of all NZ adults are overweight or obese.)

For far too long, body mass index has been used as a crude way of determining obesity-related heart disease risk.

However, according to the results of a new study, it’s the amount of belly fat that is the one of the biggest determining factors of heart disease risk.

For example, men who have a waist measurement of 102 cms or more have a higher risk of developing heart disease. Similarly, the figure for women is 88 cms.  

The Best Indicators of Health:

If BMI is not a reliable indicator of health, then what is?The best indicators of overall health and cardiovascular fitness include the following tests: (The first 6 tests can be conducted by a personal trainer.)

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