This is what questionable health looks like.

[digitaldiscipline]

Oh, hey, it's that time again: Time to complain about shitty metrics and half-assed testing mechanisms.

Let's look at the (un)surprising cavalcade of statistical anomalies that my sit-down with my health insurance review brought to light.

First up, we have a scale that reports my weight approximately ten pounds higher than the one at home, and, even deducting an arbitrary two pounds for clothing allowance (in my case, Utilikilt, workout shirt, and lightweight polo), it had me two pounds heavier than I've ever been, full stop. So that was a great way to get things started. I know better than to give any credence to those hand-held resistometers for measuring body fat percentage, but that didn't really quell all of the irritation at seeing 20.5% show up on the screen... which, given what I have gleaned from both my calipers and my eyeballs, is probably about twice what is actually the case.

Yes, I'm overweight according to BMI (28.3 kg/m²). Ah, yes, that modern obfuscation of height/weight chart, where it thinks everyone should be a weak, slender waif in order to be healthy. I have a weak, slender (but calloused), middle finger to extend to your worthless ass.

With those two erroneous data points fresh in my mind, it's hardly surprising that my as-tested blood pressure was elevated about 20 points (134/88).

None of that could fuck up my blood profile, where my fasted glucose was 94, my cholesterol was 116, and my total cholesterol to HDL ratio was 2.8.

I am going to outlive whatever asshole thought up BMI, and I am going to dance, poorly, but carrying a kettlebell, on their grave.

Comments

[rav3n.livejournal.com]

meh, and the insurance company will use BMI to raise your premiums no doubt as you're probably in an 'at risk' category.. Tho I suspect your blood work might help.

[anarcha.livejournal.com]

Hah! Yeah it's amazing how bad those metrics are.

I'm actually on my health insurer's list for "weight loss counseling", believe it or not. The combination of asthma inhaler and acid reflux diagnosis put me into that category... I had one extraordinary call about 2 years ago where the counselor thought I was in denial about my weight and nutritional habits.

[etcet.livejournal.com]

They have a little chart on the literature where they, I shit you not, have body fat percentages categorized as "underweight," "healthy range," "overweight," and "obese."

Apparently, my goal is to be simultaneously underweight and overweight, because I figure my BMI at 7% body fat will still be north of 24.9.

Athletes: We're fucking unhealthy, yo.

[etcet.livejournal.com]

It's really hard to argue with blood numbers like that, and if they want to, they're welcome to argue with me after the workout of their choice.

[argonel.livejournal.com]

Considering the chart was developed before the US civil war, the grave should be ready for dancing.

Anytime I see someone trying to use BMI as anything but a guage of appearance I laugh in their face.

[etcet.livejournal.com]

Ah, indeed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolphe_Quetelet

Not that I am apt to get to Belgium (gratuitous use of word, dramatic screenplay implied), but now I have a bullet point item to hit if I do go there.

[cheez-ball.livejournal.com]

BMI is great for population-level metrics but useless for individual appraisals of a person's health. Anyone with half a brain can tell you that. Unfortunately insurance companies don't have half a brain.

[lil-m-moses.livejournal.com]

Out of curiousity, have you checked the calibration of your home scale against some of your free weights lately?

[etcet.livejournal.com]

That's an excellent idea, which I shall put to the test this evening. I've used that to figure out how much, say, a bar weighs (by holding it or not holding it and measuring the difference), but not to calibrate the scale itself.

Not sure how easily i'll be able to stack kettlebells or something on it while remaining able to read it, but it's certainly something to pursue.

and, who knows, maybe i do weigh more than i think i do. since i'm not doing anything keenly weight-dependent (like competing in a powerlifting meet or anything like that), it's most just a data point.

[feyrieprincess.livejournal.com]

My BMI is 30.5 According to the charts I am "morbidly obese" and about to die any second. I run 1 mile a day, ride horses, and do bootcamp style circuit training twice per week. So I feel your pain about the ridiculous waif-biased charts.

[cassandrasimplx.livejournal.com]

Oh, yeah. Those categories are insane.

During my teens, my small-town family doctor, whose office had been tracking my health since I was 5, begged me to stop running and gain weight (5'5" and 115 lbs). In my twenties, when body fat and BMI erupted out of time-intensive athletic measurements and onto height/weight charts in magazines, I was suddenly "overweight" at 120 lbs, and stayed in the "overweight" category until 29, when I tipped over into "obese". I may be back down to merely "overweight" now. Somewhere in my early 20s, I learned to blame this on the density of gymnasts' thighs and ignore the categories as completely unrelated to health and having everything to do with making women (and now, more actively than before, men) feel like they need to do something about the awful way they look right now. Without hesitation and definitely without research.

It's bad enough when you have a nagging suspicion that the categories applied to your body are determined and driven by a beauty industry that indirectly profits most if you're feeling insecure and unlovely. (Damning BMI chart next to an article on emphasizing your eyes to draw attention away from "those hips" next to mascara ad on consecutive pages, anyone?) If I got the same bullshit from a company that gets to charge more directly if they can show that I'm unhealthy, I'd call thumb-on-the-scale.

[etcet.livejournal.com]

I am lacking the mental acuity to craft an actuarial table-based expletive here at the moment, because fuck actuarial tables.

[perspicuity.livejournal.com]

last time i was weighed, i asked if this thing was calibrated, and they laughed. "does it even give the same weight twice?" more laughter.

at least the scale i have at home is consistent. actually had to do some more than casual research to find one that accurate.

#

[tygenco-x.livejournal.com]

You, sir, are made of win.

I'll dance on that grave right along with you. Because apparently, according to that index, I'm 80 pounds overweight. (mercifully, my doctor is a realist and has told me that he thinks I should be just fine so long as I continue taking care of myself; my blood pressure being damn near perfect is a testament to that)

[mckitterick.livejournal.com]

Exactly. For 99.999% of Americans, it DOES make sense to assume overweightness, but they need to be educated about athletic exceptions to the stats.

[etcet.livejournal.com]

When I was sedentary, I was technically at a "healthy" weight.

Of course, my cholesterol was more than twice as high as it is now, I drank like a fish, and I was generally weak (but could still run decently in a pinch).

[etcet.livejournal.com]

My scale is pretty accurate up to 115# (36, 36, and 53 pound kettlebells), and asserts that I do, in fact, weigh 185# this evening.

Kids, this is what eating a whole jumbo carton of goldfish crackers over a long weekend will do to you in terms of water retention; that's the best part of a whole gallon (8#) over my generally trending baseline.

[lil-m-moses.livejournal.com]

Ouch. Point taken, because I like Goldfish too.

[lil-m-moses.livejournal.com]

Last time I got called for jury duty, one of the questions they asked the pool was whether we trusted the readings of radar guns. I replied that it would depend on when the thing was last calibrated, and what the weather and surrounding traffic conditions were at the time. Needless to say, I didn't get picked for the jury. Can't be having any of us crazy folks who work with "calibrated" instruments on a daily basis and know just how flaky they can be!

[luckycanuck.livejournal.com]

"I am going to outlive whatever asshole thought up BMI, and I am going to dance, poorly, but carrying a kettlebell, on their grave."

I've been overweight and knocking on the obese door for a long time now, but I'm often described as the fittest person people know, so I will join you in the Mr Strong Dance.

[etcet.livejournal.com]

I've been eating relatively few processed grains, and low carb in general, so when I do have them, it tends to be a fairly dramatic water retention event. I was back down to 180.5 this morning after a dinner of steak and veggies and a post-workout shake thing.

[etcet.livejournal.com]

Looks like we need to survive to at least 78 to make good on this.

[etcet.livejournal.com]

Do I think it's possible to be healthy and heavy? Yes.

Do I think it's healthy to carry a lot of extra weight long-term? Not really, no.

(note: the key words there are "a lot of"; there's a fair bit of research that suggests being slightly overweight, preferably when it's due to increased lean mass, is beneficial, especially as you get older)

[etcet.livejournal.com]

Y U NO TRUST COP MAGIC? ;-)

[ivy]

Hahaha. No one's diet-perfect all the time. We keep ourselves from going crazy by occasionally falling off the wagon.

[ivy]

I thought you meant a table of expletives. Fuck. Fucking fuck. Fucking fuckery. Etc. That would have been awesome.

[etcet.livejournal.com]

F U C K
U F K C
C K U F
K C F U

[tygenco-x.livejournal.com]

True.

I've been slowly pouring through that whole "health at every size" stuff lately; I should add the research you've mentioned to my reading list.

[etcet.livejournal.com]

This article is fairly cursory, it references some decent academic work on the subject in the footnotes:

http://www.livestrong.com/article/290813-lean-body-mass-improvment-in-the-elderly/

[clevermanka.livejournal.com]

if they want to, they're welcome to argue with me after the workout of their choice

<3

[thebigpants.livejournal.com]

One of those hand held numbers told me that I was obese.