Bad metrics

Well, it's suddenly been realised by the meejah that the UK is going the way of the US in its population of human spheroids - and has a number of milder cases (thinking of a colleague of mine who is about 15 years younger than me, and wheezes to his desk after climbing up two floors on the stairs). But then people start using the ridiculous BMI value as a measure.

About 6-7 years back, I had a fitness assessment at the gym - I use the local Y - and they got the callipers out, and decided that, given the ideal fat % at age 40, I should lose about 6kg i.e. get down to a total of 90kg. Last time I weighed myself, I was 91kg, and I don't think I've shed muscle mass in the interim, what with doing more longer distance cycling to work than I was doing then, and keeping up the workouts over the winter.

But at about 5' 10", that gives a BMI of just under 29 even for the ideal fat %age. Just goes to show that the BMI was computed with a population without significant muscle mass, especially upper body mass.

Myself, I prefer the 35"/90cm waistline criterion.