America is having an obesity crisis! At least, that’s what we’re told. The number of people overweight in the country is said to be at a crisis level. Americans are infamously fat; mocked around the world for being bloated. But is that true? When you read or hear the word obese, what does that suggest to you?
Most people think of someone really overweight, with rolls of fat; the kind of person who is seriously unhealthy. According to a recent Associated Press report, about 5% of Americans are “morbidly obese,” which is defined as more than 100 pounds over weight, while a full 33 % are just plain obese. That sounds just awful, but what does “obese” mean?
The official definition of “obese” is “any amount of weight over the Body Mass Index (BMI) range for your height.” That’s any number over 30 on the BMI. “Morbidly obese” is defined as at least 100 pounds over the ideal range supplied by the BMI, and there’s where the confusion comes in. When someone is described as obese, few picture someone with a few extra pounds or a little heavy, they think “bury in a refrigerator crate.” We have a lot of other words to describe someone who might be a little heavy, such as “chubby,” “thick,” “curvy,” and so on.
At nearly 6’3 and 200 pounds, my body mass index is 25. That’s nearly 30 and I’m not anywhere near fat, but the BMI considers me to be “overweight.” The BMI does not take into account lifestyle, body shape or musculature. It presumes an average sedentary person. Someone who is very athletic will weigh more than someone who is not because muscle weighs more than fat. Does that make them less healthy? The BMI would say so.
There’s another concern, however. The Body Mass Index has been changed over time, redefining “overweight.” In 1998, the US federal government under President Bill Clinton adjusted the BMI definitions:
Unsurprisingly, the numbers of overweight people rose sharply in the following years as surveys and studies were done. Are these people really all that unhealthy or overeweight? Some certainly are, but some are simply of stockier builds (“mesomorphs”) or have a higher muscle to weight ratio.
America is considered unusually filled with fat people, a theme that continuously is mentioned by comedians in this country and those would-be comedians around the world. Yet, is that especially true? Even by the BMI’s flawed standards, the US does not stand out, particularly, worldwide. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), here are the top 10 fattest countries, with the percentage of people living there who are considered “overweight:”
Federated States of Micronesia 91.13
Cook Islands 90.94
Tonga 90.85
Niue 81.76
Samoa 80.47
Palau 78.48
Kuwait 74.29
United States 74.110
Kiribati 73.611
In fact, WHO estimates that worldwide, about 33% of the population is “obese” by BMI standards; the exact same percentage as the United States. As it turns out, the US is not especially fat, but you couldn’t tell that by listening to news broadcasts and the statements by First Lady Michelle Obama.
Obesity – true obesity – is nothing to be scoffed at, and is something to be avoided, but so is misusing statistics for a political agenda.
