Fat Neck, Fat Kid

For years, researchers and health professionals have used BMI (Body Mass Index) to determine whether or not to label someone as “overweight”.  That may soon go out the window for a better option.

You see, BMI is notoriously inaccurate.  All it is, basically, is dividing weight by height.  What it doesn’t tell you is actually how fat a person is.  They might be “heavy” for their height, but that could be due to increased muscle mass and not body fat.  For example, a competitive bodybuilder would show up as wildly obese on the BMI scale, even though they have so little body fat that every muscle fiber in their body is poking out.

So why is BMI used at all?  Simple.  It’s easy.  It’s really, really easy to just calculate BMI, rather than try to measure body fat directly (which has its own complications).  So for people studying populations who needed a quick and easy way to label people as overweight or not, BMI was the answer.

Now, researcher are testing to see if neck size might be a better option, particularly for screening kids for obesity.  Neck circumferance seems to correlate well with BMI in general and also waist size.  Of course, the problem I see with this is, they’re comparing neck size to BMI, which is already unreliable, when they should correlate to body fat percentage, but hey, what do I know.

What method do you use for testing to see if you’re packing on too much pudge?  I have a pair of jeans I use as a measuring device… if they start getting snug, I need to pay closer attention to my diet.

Source: http://health.yahoo.net/news/s/nm/us_neck_size