Re:The Obesity Era
by joelrunyon on Thursday June 20, 2013 @09:55PM
(#5916057)
I'd argue that most people - other than knowing they're overweight - know little about their lifestyle as well (or at least they don't know it as well as they'd like to think).
The prevalence of quantified self & self-tracking is starting to change this & when you're able to measure & track inputs better, you're better able to correlate the results with them as well.
> we act like you can know something meaningful about a person's lifestyle and health from a single glance.
Based on your sibling comments (which as of this moment consist of "you're still eating too much food and not exercising enough"), I agree.
A measurement like BMI, which is a great way of looking at a population, is a terrible way of understanding an individual, and the use of weight and BMI as a stand-in for health is infuriatingly wrongheaded.