 "Photo:")
George Clooney has fluctuated between being overweight and obese over the years, especially when he packed on 35 pounds for his 2005 film "Syriana," which he accomplished by eating mostly pasta.
No, this is not the tabloids throwing out catty opinions; according to the body mass index, or BMI, these and many other celebrities would fall into the 66 percent of Americans who are either overweight or obese as determined by the 2003-04 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey.
Created by Belgian mathematician, sociologist and astronomer Lambert Adolphe Jacques Quételet for his 1835 study "A Treatise on Man and the Development of His Faculties," the BMI - then called the Quételet Index - was a tool used by Quételet to determine who the average man was.
Since then, the BMI has been updated and improved, including a recommendation in 1995 by the World Health Organization to include three categories of "underweight" and three categories of "obese."
A person's BMI is calculated by dividing their weight in kilograms by their height in meters squared.
The Internet has a collection of BMI calculators, including the Web site for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which can calculate using metric and standard units.
Paula Daggett, R.N., coordinator of the college health center, said the BMI is one of many tools in determining the ratio of fat to muscle.
Dawn Brooks, kinesiology instructor and wellness coordinator at this college, said she uses the bioelectrical impedance analysis, or BIA, and the skin fold caliper test.
The BIA, she said, uses a devise that requires the user to enter height, weight and age before grabbing handles to show the user's percent of body fat and how much that fat weighs.
Brooks said a chart shows the users' range of fat content and how much weight they would need to burn to reach a healthy goal.
She said she also measures skin folds using a pinch test because the test is better suited to determine where the fat is concentrated.
Despite the BMI's shortcomings, Daggett and Brooks said it is the best way to statistically determine the body composition of large population samples.
Some of the drawbacks, Daggett said, come when determining the body composition of people with high muscle mass and bone density.
Be the first to comment on this article!