In a bid to tackle the UK’s “child obesity problem,” the government has announced that primary school children are to be weighed “regularly” when the new academic year starts in September. The move has been criticised for “fat-shaming” children, as well as encouraging disordered eating.
The backlash to the government’s plans is reflective of the growing movement against the use of seemingly arbitrary measures, such as weight and/or BMI (body mass index) to assess overall health. In fact, a report published by the Women and Equalities Committee in April 2021 recommended that the government should scrap the use of BMI immediately, highlighting its negative impact on body image and eating disorders.
With 61% of adults and 66% of children feeling “negatively” or “very negatively” about their body image, we’re very much hoping the government’s review into the use of BMI signals a massive societal shift in the way we view and measure health.
There’s been talk this week of replacing BMI with ABSI (a body shape index). While your BMI is calculated by dividing your weight in kg by your height in metres squared, your body shape index takes into account your age, sex, weight, height and waist circumference.
In May earlier this year, new research was presented to The European Congress on Obesity suggested that ABSI should be used alongside BMI when determining the risk of obesity-related cancers. The research noted that BMI fails to account for where fat is stored in the body, nor does it distinguish fat from muscle.
Lead author of the research, Dr Carlos Celis-Morales from the University of Glasgow, pointed out that the findings, “underscore the importance of measuring more than just BMI when predicting cancer risk, and suggest that people’s body shape may increase their risk of certain cancers.”
Founder of Be The Fittest, Tyrone Brennand, agrees that BMI shouldn’t be the only measure of health, pointing out that under this matrix, even professional athletes could be deemed “obese.”
“When I was doing weight training, I was obese according to BMI! Some professional athletes with very low body fat percentages could even be deemed obese! It doesn’t calculate for actual body makeup as it doesn’t factor in that muscle weighs more than fat.”
But while it could be argued that ABSI is a step in the right direction towards a more all-encompassing, inclusive (and less damaging) approach to health, is it time we stopped trying to measure something as complex as our wellness with simple formulas? After all, human health is way more than just the number of the scale and the circumference of our waist.
Tyrone thinks so, and says it’s time we started prioritising listening to their bodies, rather than worrying about health indexes.
“I believe people need to listen to their bodies more. Energy and confidence levels for example are so important to your general wellbeing. If you are getting out of breath when doing everyday tasks, perhaps you need to work on your fitness levels.
“If you are getting injured frequently, perhaps you need to work on your strength and mobility. Every body is different, and these general indexes are incomparable to your own awareness of your body, as well as your gut instinct.”
Whether we ditch health indexes like BMI and ABSI for good, we hope that society starts to take a kinder, less judgemental approach when it comes to measuring our wellbeing.