Weighing in.

Take a look of this picture of me from last year.

If you were to judge my weight from that photo, how would you characterize it? Would it be underweight? Normal? Overweight? Knowing I'm 5'11", could you guess my weight?

Would you guess that I weigh 220 pounds? And would you believe that, according to the National Institutes of Health I am obese?

Really! According to the BMI (Body-Mass Index) being 5'11" and 220 lbs give me a BMI of 30.7, into the obese category. If this is the definition of obesity then it shouldn't be any surprise that 30% of Americans are considered obese.

I am not obese. The BMI does not take into account that I have legs that are pretty solid muscle and that muscle is more dense than fat. Sure, I have a little bit of ponch around my middle and would like to loose about 20 pounds, but to say that I am obese is just absurd. By their formula, I should weigh around 165. Hell, I haven't weighed that little since I was in Junior High School, and I was a skinny little weakling nerd.

Here's a bit of trivia. I weigh the same as my father. Now, my dad is three inches taller than I am but has a true beer belly. He also has astonishingly skinny legs. His BMI has him in the overweight category. He's not as active as I am and is contending with hypertension and high blood pressure. All the more reason for me to keep doing the exercises that I do to keep in shape.