Obesity & Nutrition

Cruising around the net, I saw this article on BET.com about obesiy in the Black community. It seems that Black women as a racial/gender group have the highest percentage of obesity; 50 percent of Black women are classified as obese. They don't specify in the article, but I am fairly confident that obesity in this case is being determined by the body mass index (BMI). You can calculate your own body mass index by using this formula: (weight/height in inches squared)*703. (That is, weight divided by height in inches times height in inches times 703.) Or if that's too confusing, or you just don't feel like doing the math, you can find it here. At any rate, for anybody who's been keeping track, this is something I have been doing research on and writing about from time to time. One of the main difficulties I have with using the BMI as a measurement of obesity is that it simply calculates based on height and weight. Therefore, using his measurements from 1974, when Arnold Schwarzeneggar was Mr. Olympia, he would register as obese. So it should be noted that the BMI has some limitations. Having said that, I don't think there are a whole bunch of extremely muscular sistas walking around messing up the CDC's report. One thing, though, I think the thrust of the campaign should stress healthy living and not just obesity. I know what the CDC means, but I'm fairly sure that when most people hear "obese," they think "very fat." What people need to understand is that the changes they need to make are not about dieting or trying to look thinner, they need to make lifestyle changes. That is, they need to bring in some exercise and cut out some calories. Especially those empty snack food calories taken in while they're sitting around letting the idiot box watch them. Speaking of the idiot box, I just need to mention that I just watched the Terps beat North Carolina State after being down by 21 points. A friend of mine and I were talking last night and he was like, "I like 'em, but they're too young; they don't have no heart." I guess they got some heart now, huh?