Comments on: Asian BMI: How I Became Obese in Ten Seconds

By: 8Asians.com » Tall, Short and Segregated Asians: Six Lessons from a Basketball Season

Wed, 22 Apr 2009 19:34:51 +0000

[...] men desperately needing rest watched by 22,000 desperately needing exercise.” Diabetes and obesity are real problems in the Asian-American communities and beyond. Overemphasis on winning, as seen by [...]

By: 8Asians.com » Popular Posts in the Past 15 Days

8Asians.com » Popular Posts in the Past 15 Days — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 15:22:22 +0000

[...] Asian BMI: How I Became Obese in Ten Seconds – “I showed my reading, which indicated that I was overweight, to my doctor. ‘You can’t use that reading,’ he said. ‘You have to use the Asian BMI.’ He looked up my BMI on the Asian BMI scale. ‘You are obese,’ he declared.“ [...]

By: 8Asians.com » Asian-American Youth and Juvenile Diabetes

8Asians.com » Asian-American Youth and Juvenile Diabetes — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 18:26:08 +0000

[...] diabetes), type 2 can be generally be prevented with a healthy diet and exercise – basically avoiding obesity and watching one’s weight. That’s something we all, regardless of ethnicity or race, can take away from [...]

By: strawrose

strawrose — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 04:36:59 +0000

So with all this muscle and active lifestyle, I’m a little over one point away from being overweight! Oh joy!

By: Dan

Dan — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 20:58:18 +0000

I’m fine with race specific health concerns, just people associate BMI too much with whether or not you’re a fatass.

By: Jeff

Jeff — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 05:50:27 +0000

@Madley: Here is a link to the Asian BMI scale:

http://aadi.joslin.harvard.edu/asianclinic/asianclinic_bmi.asp

It also has other scales where you can compare.

By: Madley

Madley — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 03:28:25 +0000

Oh good grief, I’m already fighting to get my BMI down for transplant purposes and now there’s this new scale?! Yikes.

Okay… where is it? Where’s that chart (I didn’t find one in the article you noted in your post). Gotta know how much more I need to sweat off…

And I’m curious… where do we (Asian-Americans) lie in relation to other races re: BMI?

By: Jeff

Jeff — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 00:25:23 +0000

@joz – thanks for the link.

Here’s the link that the tweet is referring to:

http://foodarazzi.com/?p=651

My post covers similar ground as that one.

By: Laura

Laura — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 22:56:10 +0000

It makes sense to use an Asian BMI. When I look at body fat calculators, they tell me that Asians have less bone density. Hence, our bones weigh less, so when we get on the scales, more of the weight is fat, or muscle. I never thought about it in terms of BMI, but it seems like an important consideration.

By: Efren

Efren — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 19:47:58 +0000

Without getting too technical, many forms of biomedical science are looking to see if and how ethnicity are playing a role in how drugs are metabolized, etc., while also looking at how cultural factors play a role in health. That being said, it’s been pretty well documented that there’s more difference genetically within “the races” than across “the races”.

Also, I’m not sure how accurate it would be to use an “Asian BMI” versus other BMI, especially if we’re raised in America. The BMI and other scales are generally just used as an initial indicator, but most clinicians recognize that the BMI is seriously flawed since it doesn’t distinguish between mass being composed of muscle or fat, hence that’d explain why the Governator would be considered obese. A better indicator would be measuring fat percentage relative to muscle, methinks.