This Seattle Post Intelligencer article reports on a University of North Carolina study that queried people as to whether they fell into the normal, overweight or obese category. The normal weight and overweight people generally correctly identified their body type just over 70 per cent of the time. However, those in the obese category got it right only 15% of the time. The article points out that among the consequences of obesity are heightened risk of heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure and arthritis.

I guess it’s not that surprising that obese people are reluctant to categorize themselves thusly. It’s an ugly term fraught with negative connotations, and as the article also mentions the BMI calculations tend to be surprising tough—a 5 foot ten inch male is obese if he is over 208 pounds.

Still to the extent that obese people really are that totally lacking in self awareness, they are adding to the medical risk they already face. We all know that it is essential to recognize that a problem exists before one can correct it.

The article points out that BMI doesn’t work for the professional athlete which is absolutely true. Interestingly, waist hip ratios work on all physiques and are a better predictor of cardiac problems than BMI. Still, very few of the obese in the nation fall into the professional athlete category.

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