BMI is trash

I've received a few e-mails on my vote to repeal the BMI testing requirement of our children in public schools. The BMI itself is a faulty test that doesn't tell us anything about a person's body composition, because it doesn't take muscle mass into consideration.

The BMI is not science -- it merely takes a person's height and weight and spits out a number, and we've been mandating that our taxpayers' money go towards this antiquated and outdated calculation.

According to the BMI test, my healthy weight range is between 128 and 174 (I haven't weighed 128 sincethe 3rd grade). As I trained for the Miami marathon last year, I got down to 191 pounds and 12% bodyfat. I was running sub-seven minute miles on my training routes, but according to the BMI, I was still overweight. Even at 0% bodyfat (an impossibility), I would've barely fit in the upper range of the "healthy" envelope. I'm about 15 pounds heavier today, and I fall in the "morbidly obese" category, even though I'm logging 25 miles per week in my running shoes. No wonder this test tells us that 60% of our children in the state are obese -- the test is faulty.

Take Darren McFadden, the Heisman Trophy runner-up and Doak Walker Award winner. According to the BMI, he rates at 26.3, which falls into the overweight category. Are you willing to tell McFadden to his face that he's overweight?

If we're going to require our school districts to categorize our childrens' weight class (a measure I oppose), we need to find a modern way of doing it: calipers, bodyfat tests, etc. The BMI is useless and tells us nothing of a child's body composition.

Calculate your BMI here (click here).