Originally Posted By jonvn It's not a measure of body fat in the first place. It's a body mass measurement, hence the name. But it really does not matter, as what's going on is that obesity levels are flattening. Which no one knows why. There is an area of science called epigenetics. It is trying to figure out why when you have genes that match exactly in two organisms, such as twins, why they are not exactly alike. You'd think that twins (or mice) that have the exact same genes would produce the exact same animal. But they don't. They are now finding out that there are other factors that ride on type of the genome that affect how it works. And this can come back after generations to actually trigger something. I believe in one thing they studied, that if a grandfater went through starvation while alive, the grandchild has a higher chance of being obese. Or something very similar. We don't know all the causes of what obesity is or why it skyrocketed, or why it is leveling off. But perhaps people who went hungry in the great depression had children, then their children suffered the consequences. Interesting to me.
Originally Posted By Kennesaw Tom I would have to argue that the certain individuals in the medical community are using BMI as a method to determine societal obesity. Check out this link for the defination of obesity. <a href="http://www.weight.com/definition.asp" target="_blank">http://www.weight.com/definiti on.asp</a> This link explains the relationship between obesity and body fat. Since BMI quantifies obesity it therefore attempts to quantify body fat. As I already stated BMI overestimates body fat in muscular body types and underestimates body fat in individuals who have lost body mass such as the elderly. And that is the point that I am trying to make that in my opinion BMI is not an accurate method to measure ones body fat.
