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Florida Needs Better Tool To Separate The Fit From The Fat

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: December 31, 2007

A much-anticipated report from the Governor's Council on Physical Fitness is chock full of ideas for whipping flabby Floridians into shape.

It recommends 45 minutes of daily physical education for middle and high school students, getting more Florida-grown produce into school lunchrooms and empowering consumers with nutritional information when they go out to eat.

But the panel misses the mark on two key recommendations for confronting the obesity epidemic.

First, it suggests that obesity be added to the list of conditions that doctors must report to the Department of Health, a list generally reserved for contagious diseases.

However, the panel fails to make a solid case for such a drastic step. The state has no need to know the names of people who are obese. Such a list could lead to further discrimination against a demographic that already faces unabashed ridicule. Besides, doctors should not be required to fill out more paperwork unless there is a proven need.

The panel also suggests that public and charter schools measure the Body Mass Index of every child and report those who are at risk for being overweight or already overweight to the state, too. But the BMI is a flawed tool unworthy of foundational status

The BMI calculates a person's height compared to their weight. Anything less than 18.5 is considered underweight and anything greater than 25 is considered overweight. If the score is 30 or more, the person is considered obese.

But the BMI is overly simplistic. A stocky, muscular person may have a high BMI, even though having a good amount of muscle is healthy.

The Center for Consumer Freedom showed the absurdity by calculating the BMI for Hollywood's hottest leading men. It found Brad Pitt, at 6 feet, 203 pounds, has a BMI of 28; while George Clooney, at 5-11 and 211 pounds, teeters toward obesity with a BMI of 29. Yet no one would consider either actor overweight.

Also this year, a research team from Michigan State University and Saginaw Valley State University measured the BMI of more than 400 college and found that in most cases, the BMI did not accurately reflect body fat.

Neither does BMI accurately address issues of ethnic diversity because its data is based on a survey of 10,000 infants and children who lived in Ohio between 1929 and 1975.

Many health experts argue that waist circumference, which addresses the dangerous build-up of abdominal fat, is a better gauge. Others believe in measuring body-fat percentages.

The bottom line is that no good measuring tool exists for assessing obesity in a diverse population, though one is needed.

Perhaps that should be the panel's charge. Encourage Florida universities to lead the way in developing an accurate obesity gauge that could quickly and fairly survey millions of diverse people.

Such a tool would not only make Florida's fitness efforts more effective, it would make them famous.

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