Is heavy FAT?

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Body Mass Index, a bad joke

An Answer to the FAT Index article from the Desk's former online manager Kiss My Glutes!
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According to those people that get paid to know this kind of thing, to be of 'normal weight' the Desk, at six feet four inches tall, should weigh one hundred and ninety pounds. No, the Desk is NOT kidding.

Now the Desk freely admits it is a little on the heavy side. But it is also larger built and more muscular than your average one hundred and ninety pound beanpole. For recreation it pushes 16 horsepower lawn tractors around its back yard, yes, pushes, (see avoiding work), and then spends the next weekend crawling around attics and crawlspaces pulling wire and drilling holes through concrete.
Also, the Desk's weight has been stable, within ten pounds either way of its current weight, for almost twenty years. So... Get over it.

The BMI gives no accounting for build, body type, lifestyle, or whatever. It is simply a mathematical formula, to wit:

BMI =Weight in kilograms ÷ [Height in meters]² There is no magic here. Yet insurance companies and physicians credit it with solving the Mystery of Life.
Take your weight in Kilos. For the Desk, that comes out somewhere around one hundred thirty six. Divide it some kind of way by the square of your height. In the Desk's case, that's seventy-six inches, give or take, 193 cm, squared. Commence dividing, BMI in the high thirties. The Desk got three different results from two online calculators and doing it itself with its own button pusher for about half an hour.
So... according to the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute no less, the Desk should already either be dead or on the waiting list for emergency stomach resection surgery.
They also put great stock in waist circumference in relation to the magic BMI number.
Well, that's nice, how about if you, unlike the Desk, carry all your extra junk food around below the belt?

How about percentage of muscle mass to fat? That doesn't count any more?

Evidently not.

The Health Nazis, none of which are more than 'a couple of pounds' overweight (right?) are also behind the Federal Government's crusade against junk food, and the ones pushing schools to send letters which amount to little more than a veiled threat to parents of fat kids.
Your waistline is evidently of concern to politicians and other do-gooders in DC. And since they have this wonderful formula to compute just how fat you really are... Now we need Federal BMI Police to run around with calculators and scales to identify all the fatties and line them up behind that guy that ate all those sandwiches to loose weight.
Whether or not you have 'just a taste' of the Perfect Chocolate Brownie or decide to sit and eat half the pan may become the subject of Federal Law.
Ye Olde Donut Shop may have to pay more in taxes on everything except sun dried tomato bagels because they sell 'empty calorie foods', or go out of business.

So there are no problems with being underweight? Can a person who is not a teenaged female TV star even BE underweight?
The miraculous BMI range for the Desk runs from 152 pounds to 203 pounds.
The Desk is pretty sure if it weighed a hundred and fifty pounds it wouldn't be able to do half the things it does now. There are times when having some extra beef comes in handy, and, to be honest, times when it gets in the way too. All things considered, yeah, the Desk would like to loose about ten to twenty pounds, but it is not going to sign up for the 'Bean Diet' or dance around with Richard Simmons or anything else. It will exercise a little more, and avoid a few ice cream sandwiches and we'll see what happens.

To reach the minimum 'normal' weight it would have to loose HALF of what it weighs now. The Desk admits it is fat, even 'moderately obese', but it is NOT carrying around a hundred and fifty pounds of extra baggage. It's not even sure there are fifty pounds of blubber hanging off it. But that's no good, even if it lost fifty pounds and were Solid Muscle it would still be overweight.
So should it loose Muscle Mass to reach this ideal?
That seems to be the message from the Blood Institute people.
If your BMI is high and you look like the Incredible Hulk... too bad. You Are Fat.
And for those of you wondering... no, the Desk does not look like Lou Ferrigno.

Although after a long day of beating on a lawn tractor with vice grips and a crowbar coupled with hot chicken wings and cheap whisky it does take on a slightly greenish tint.

It is worth noting here that the fifty year old Mr. Ferrigno is also six feet four inches tall. So he should also only weigh 203 pounds tops. Whereas (not in competition tone) he weighs 275, when competing, he peaks in the neighborhood of 325.

OK... Ok... the Desk will loose A Few Pounds. Its way, not theirs... Cancel that donut order for tomorrow morning.

In any case. The good people from the Institute will just have to go weigh somebody else.
The Desk is sure they will live... but they may not enjoy it.

-selah-

An Answer to the FAT Index article from the Desk's former online manager Kiss My Glutes!

WEBMASTER NOTE: The Desk is NOT a Medical Doctor, nor does it play one on TV.
Thank you.

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