But who is defining the terms “overweight” and “obese” here? These are based off of the Body Mass Index (BMI) calculation. Using the BMI formula, a person of my height (6 ft) is considered overweight at 185 pounds and obese at 221 pounds. Really? Those figures don’t seem that extreme to me. And the BMI assumes that the weight is caused by fat, when it could be muscle. Most basketball and football players would be considered overweight or obese!
I’ve poked around the internet to try and find how the definitions of “overweight” and “obese” were arrived at, but could not discover the answer. Every site, from government institutions like the CDC, to multiple health and fitness websites, uses the same standard definition without describing why it is so. It also appears that the definitions of “overweight” and “obese” have changed over time.
Let’s not forget that there are hundreds of companies interested in keeping Americans feel like they are overweight. “The US weight loss market is a cash cow worth more than $60 billion.”** Pharmaceuticals, weight loss programs, dietary supplements, gymnasiums, every food manufacturer who has a “fat free” sticker on their box, the list goes on.
I’m not saying Americans are as healthy as they should be. I’m simply arguing that we should question the validity of blanket statements like “One-third of all Americans are obese.” I prefer to use statistics grounded in empirical evidence rather than arbitrary definitions.
*http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2011/11/16/142414818/americans-are-fat-and-expected-to-get-much-fatter (quotation paraphrased)
**http://naturalhealthdossier.com/2012/04/big-pharma-and-the-supplement-industry-cash-in-on-keeping-you-fat/