Poor Diet Is a Factor In One In Five Deaths, Global Disease Study Reveals (theguardian.com)

schwit1 shares a report from The Guardian: Millions of people are eating the wrong sorts of food for good health. Eating a diet that is low in whole grains, fruit, nuts and seeds and fish oils and high in salt raises the risk of an early death, according to the huge and ongoing study Global Burden of Disease. The study, based at the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, compiles data from every country in the world and makes informed estimates where there are gaps. Five papers on life expectancy and the causes and risk factors of death and ill health have been published by the Lancet medical journal. Diet is the second highest risk factor for early death after smoking. Other high risks are high blood glucose which can lead to diabetes, high blood pressure, high body mass index (BMI) which is a measure of obesity, and high total cholesterol. All of these can be related to eating the wrong foods, although there are also other causes.

Comments

Re:High BMI is a Red Herring

[blindseer]

High BMI is a red herring

No, it's an indicator. It's a means to determining if there is a need for further investigation of health problems. People with a high or low BMI will likely need an additional check for body fat. There are a number of means to double check this, buoyancy, skin pinch, waist to hip ratio, likely more.

I don't believe that BMI needs to be redone, just that it needs to be taken with the knowledge that it is an incomplete indicator of health. As you stated for your life insurance the BMI was taken along with waist, hip, and chest measurements. That's likely to cover all but the rarest of cases as an indicator of health.

I believe the BMI has been a victim of it's own success. It works well so often to indicate that a person is over or under healthy weight that people have put more faith in it than it deserves. I guess that it's pretty rare for people to have a "bad" BMI and good health, neglecting other indicators of good health. Just like it is possible but rare for people to have a "good" BMI and poor health, neglecting other indicators of poor health.

From what I understand the combination of BMI with waist to hip ratios covers probably an additional 9% on top of the 90% that BMI alone does not cover. The last 1% will just have to get a note from a physician on their health and life insurance policies.