A senior at Hanover College in Madison, Ind., Giles Garrison has spent nearly half of his life playing football. When his team’s 2006 season ended late last fall, so did Garrison’s career.
Even so, the former offensive lineman can bench 415 pounds and run the 40-yard dash in 5.2 seconds. Not too shabby, by all accounts, and even Garrison’s friends seem impressed.
“He’s a physical specimen. Just rock solid,” a male friend offers and three others quickly agree.
But according to the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute’s calculations, Garrison, 21, is not in shape; he’s obese. Standing just a hair above 6 feet tall and weighing 255 pounds, the young man’s body mass index (BMI) is 34.6.
Tyra Banks is a famous model-turned-TV-host who freely admits she now weighs at least 30 pounds more than the average runway supermodel after retiring from the fashion circuit in 2005. She has pushed her own BMI into the mere mortal category and isn’t about to apologize for it. In fact, she is happy to bust the thin-is-all pathos that has rumpled and crumpled many a young American woman’s psyche in the last several decades.
Banks told Vanity Fair magazine that social commentary about beauty and body image—with high factors of sass and verve—is one of the goals for her daytime talk show. “I feel like it’s my responsibility to do something because I was in fashion for so long projecting an image that’s hard to live up to.”
It is perhaps no coincidence that Banks’ daytime talk show is connecting with big ratings among 18- to 35-year-old women. BMI, schmee-em-I.
Earlier this week, Banks talked about recently voyaging to the Bahamas to mark the 10th anniversary of her appearance on the cover of Sports Illustrated’s 1997 swimsuit issue. She wore the same red polka dot bikini with a few adjustments, including "some extenders on the sides of the bikini bottom so it fit."
"I was about 140 pounds on that cover … and I’m 161 now," the 5-foot-10 Banks told The Associated Press. "I’d say I looked like a stripper when I put it on."
Banks’ BMI has increased from 20.1 to 23.1 or the high side of normal weight. She says she considered a crash diet to look better in the bikini, but then decided against it: "I think there’s more power in embracing what I am now and showcasing that."
BMI is “a measure of body fat based on height and weight,” according to the NHLBI’s Web site. Many medical experts use the BMI system to learn about a patient’s body composition and to inform their diet and health recommendations.
For most adults, a BMI of less than 18.5 suggests that a person is “underweight” while BMI values between 18.5 and 24.9 imply a healthy, “normal weight.” Go higher than that, all the way up to a BMI of 29.9, and the label changes to “overweight.” Still higher—to values 30 or greater—and you run into the ugly “O” word: “obesity.”
If nutritional experts were to eyeball Garrison’s 34.6 BMI on paper, they would likely suggest that the young man limit fats and sugary foods and even reduce his daily caloric intake. In other words: They’d put the guy on a diet.
Garrison, however, says he’s not planning to pile his plate full of celery sticks just yet.
“Obviously, I don’t fit the mold,” he says about his BMI calculations.
In fact, Garrison could probably break said mold with one curl of his bicep—which highlights a major flaw in the BMI system: It can label people as obese when, clearly and in the case of Garrison, they are powerful and fit.
“The beauty of BMI is that it’s easy,” says Roger Bounds, an exercise physiologist and a professor of health sciences at the University of Arizona. “It’s a glorified height and weight chart, and you can get it done in your doctor’s office or figure it out on your own.” Still, says Bounds, the BMI system has limitations.
First, the simple equation for calculating BMI cannot distinguish pounds of fat from pounds of muscle. And since muscle weighs more than fat, “If you have a lot of lean body mass, BMI has a tendency to cause an overinflated value,” says Bounds.
Clearly, this is the glitch in Garrison’s case. But problem No. 2? “Diseases are like complicated puzzles,” Bounds adds, “and BMI is just one piece of the puzzle.”
Other equally important puzzle pieces include various “risk factors” like cholesterol levels, family health history and diet and exercise habits, Bounds says. “Looking at just one piece isn’t that helpful—it’s all about the whole picture.”
On these matters—BMI’s two biggest limitations—scientists tend to agree. They also generally agree that BMI is best at predicting risk in large-scale populations, and it is, at the very least, slightly less useful at the individual level.
But, after these few points, the expert opinions part ways. Some scientists maintain BMI classifications should vary according to race and ethnicity—for example, they suggest that Asians, being naturally skinny, should have a lower “obesity” threshold than 30. Other scientists believe that where a person stores fat is just as important as their amount of body fat (generally, thigh fat is considered “healthier” than abdominal fat).
And in Canada, a team of physicians have found that using a person’s waist-to-hip ratio is three times better than using their BMI value to predict the risk of a heart attack. As a result, scientists have begun questioning the role and importance of BMI values in appraising patient health.
Still, in many circles BMI is considered one of the medical community’s best tools for identifying people who might be at risk for weight-related health problems, says Deborah Galuska, a nutrition and physical activity scientist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “We know that as a person’s BMI gets higher, so does their amount of excess body fat. And studies have also shown that as BMI gets higher, the risk of health conditions—like developing heart disease, high blood pressure and diabetes—also increases.”
This may explain why some schools are sending home “BMI report cards.” (The equation used to calculate BMI is different for children and adults. Because children are still growing, their equation takes into consideration not just height and weight, but also age and gender. As a result, their BMI values are in the form of percentiles: Children in the 85 percentile to 95 percentile are considered “at risk for being overweight” and children in or above the 95 percentile are “overweight.”)
Some parents are outraged. Others, perhaps silently, see it as a necessary public health evil. By warning parents when their child’s BMI climbs too high, school officials are hoping to turn the tide on obesity at an early age.
Galuska and the CDC have no official stance on the matter but, unsurprisingly, the University of Arizona’s Bounds is not a fan of this approach. “I think we should be pushing to stay on the positive side of things,” he says, “especially when we’re dealing with young children. The message we should be sending home is not, ‘Hey, your child’s BMI is bad.’ Instead, we should be reminding parents and kids that it’s good to exercise, and it’s good to eat right.”
The report cards highlight BMI’s “puzzle problem,” says Bounds. Parents, teachers and young students may not consider all the pieces involved, but medical professionals are trained to look at a person’s health from all angles, he explains. “So, if schools are sending BMI information home, just that one number won’t tell you what’s truly happening.”
About Editor-in-Chief, Madeline Jones
Always an activist and looking to bring plus size women into a fashion forward mentality, in 2006 she combined forces with friend and online magazine publisher, Valery Amador, to create PLUS Model Magazine, where they could respond to plus women's demand for fashionable clothing displayed prominently on appropriately sized models. Since then, Ms. Jones has quickly become the, 'Anna Wintour' of the plus size industry where she is frequently called upon for her expertise and insight; Appearances and interviews include ABC World News with Diane Sawyer, Entertainment Tonight, Coco Perez, Fox News, HuffingtonPost.com and 200+ other media sources.
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