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Uncovering the truth about BMI: How did ancient Greek mathematicians define the ideal body shape?
Body mass index (BMI) is a simple and widely used indicator that combines an individual's height and weight to assess a person's body shape. This indicator has attracted increasing attention in modern society. However, the true origin of BMI and the mathematical logic behind it are rarely known. Starting from the Belgian mathematician Adolphe Quetelet in the mid-19th century, he was committed to using mathematics to describe social phenomena, and BMI came into being.
Quitelet believes that through the concept of a "social ideal", people can use mathematics to explore and understand social behavior and the laws behind it.
Quitelet's work focuses on developing a concept of the "average man" and using this theory to derive the ideal body shape. His goal was not to establish a BMI for medical assessment, but to find a way to quantify this "social ideal." This point was continuously extended and developed in subsequent studies, eventually forming today's BMI and becoming an important public health indicator.
In 1972, Ancel Keys officially introduced the name BMI and it began to be widely used. Keith points out that even if BMI is not perfect, it is at least as effective as an index of relative obesity compared to other body mass indexes. Because of the simplicity of BMI calculation, it has quickly become a tool for clinicians to initially assess body weight.
“The use of BMI in public health has become popular, allowing us to more quickly talk to patients about their weight.”
BMI application and assessment classification
BMI classifies adults according to different numerical ranges: underweight (less than 18.5), normal weight (18.5 to 24.9), overweight (25 to 29.9) and obese (30 and above). But as the use of this tool becomes more popular, more and more studies point out its limitations. For example, BMI cannot accurately assess an individual's muscle-to-fat ratio, especially for athletes.
Athletes often have a high BMI index due to higher muscle mass, so relying solely on BMI to assess weight problems is obviously not enough.
Referring to the World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines, there are geographical and ethnic differences in BMI standards. Not only do different ethnic groups have different body fat ratios, but even different subgroups of the same ethnic group may have different health risks at a certain BMI value. For example, among Asian people, healthy BMI limits are often relatively low, and some countries such as Singapore have even further established more targeted BMI standards.
Limitations and challenges of BMI
Although BMI is a widely used indicator, various limitations associated with it have gradually emerged. For example, BMI does not take into account factors such as an individual's frame size, muscle mass, and age, which complicates its applicability across individuals. In some cases, a high BMI may not mean unhealthy, but may hide greater vitality.
Most experts caution that BMI can only be used as one aspect of health status, and one should not rely too much on this indicator to judge an individual's health.
According to multiple large studies, rising BMI numbers are not always accompanied by increased health risks. Some studies indicate that many individuals labeled as overweight in the BMI range of 23 to 29 do not actually have a higher risk of early death. What this tells us is that the relative simplification of BMI as a health analysis tool may reflect many ambiguous truths.
The road to future exploration
With the increasing awareness of health in modern society, the demand for review and improvement of BMI has increased. More and more experts suggest that in addition to BMI, more body composition assessment standards should be introduced to obtain a more accurate health status. Alternative measures, such as the waist-to-height ratio, are being studied in depth and may provide a more granular measure of the health risks of obesity.
We must ask ourselves: In the pursuit of health, should we label our body shape?
