American Medical Association & BMI - change is happening!!!

Using body mass index (BMI) to determine an individual’s “healthy weight” is not only outdated, it’s harmful, upsetting, and downright wrong. Just last month I posted a blog about my own personal experience with BMI testing. So imagine my happiness when I was in my car listening to NPR and there was a brief story about a new policy being adopted by the American Medical Association (AMA) and BMI!

For a bit of context, BMI is defined by the Center for Disease Control (CDC) as:

“Body Mass Index (BMI) is a person’s weight in kilograms (or pounds) divided by the square of height in meters (or feet). A high BMI can indicate high body fatness. BMI screens for weight categories that may lead to health problems, but it does not diagnose the body fatness or health of an individual.”

Oh, and a little fun fact, BMI was created by a mathematician over 200 years ago to help the Belgian government allocate resources by determining the degree of obesity in the general population; its original purpose did not involve measuring an individual's level of fatness.

Going back to the new policy, not only has the AMA recognized the issues and limitations with using BMI as a measurement tool, “the new policy supports AMA in educating physicians on the issues with BMI and alternative measures for diagnosing obesity.”

I’ve linked a short press release below so that you can read more about the new policy. Change is happening and I am all for it! What are your thoughts? Share in the comments below and let’s continue to educate ourselves and each other!

AMA adopts new policy clarifying the role of BMI as a measure in medicine