The Over-Hyped Obesity Epidemic
The standard, called the Body Mass Index (BMI), is decidedly faulty since it only takes height and weight, and not muscle mass, into consideration, according to the Center for Consumer Freedom.
While his personal physicians say he's in the top 99th percentile for men his age, President Bush, who bikes up to 120 miles a week and once graced the cover of Runner's World, is the victim of the very same flawed standard fueling the over-hyped "obesity epidemic" today.
This standard, called the Body Mass Index (BMI), is decidedly faulty since it only takes height and weight, and not muscle mass, into consideration. A BMI over 25 means you're "overweight" and a BMI over 30 means you're "obese." The President, with a BMI of 26, is officially overweight, but in good company; Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, with a BMI of 33, is considered "obese" and celebrities like Matt Damon, Will Smith, and Bruce Willis are in the "overweight" category.
Even more ridiculous, in 1998 the U.S. government changed the standard by which overweight is measured. As a result, over 35 million Americans were shifted from a government-approved weight to the overweight category
-- without gaining an ounce! President Bush, famous celebrities and athletes, and millions of ordinary Americans have all fallen victim to this flawed standard which is also the basis for the faulty claim that 65% of Americans today are overweight or obese.
Public interest groups like the food police at the Center for Science in the Public Interest along with trial lawyers looking to earn an easy buck continually exploit the flawed BMI scale to promote "fat taxes," food bans, and lawsuits against restaurants as a way to control what's on your -- and the President's -- dinner plate.
"When President Bush -- arguably the fittest man to ever hold the office - - is labeled overweight, we need to question the so-called 'obesity epidemic' and massive margin of error in the Body Mass Index," said Justin Wilson, senior research analyst for The Center for Consumer Freedom.
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