28/06/2022
๐๐ถ๐ฑ ๐ฌ๐ผ๐ ๐๐ป๐ผ๐?
๐๐๐ ๐๐ช๐๐จ๐ฉ๐๐ค๐ฃ๐๐๐ก๐ (๐๐ฃ๐ ๐ง๐๐๐๐จ๐ฉ) ๐๐๐จ๐ฉ๐ค๐ง๐ฎ ๐ค๐ ๐ฉ๐๐ ๐ฝ๐๐
There are some obvious and not-so-obvious ways that fitness, race, culture, and gender intertwine.
And we are going to spend some time this Summer exploring and unpacking some of the ways that fitness has helped shape our view on things like body image, and what we deem to be a โhealthyโ or โunhealthyโ body. (Hint: you can not tell just by looking at someone).
In addition, BMI was not created to diagnose or identify obesity or with individual health in mind, it was instead a statistical analysis tool for populations.
The man who created it, was Lambert Adolphe Jacques Quetelet.
โIf the average man were completely determined, we might consider him as the type of perfection,โ....
โAnd everything differing from his proportion or condition would constitute deformity or disease ... or monstrosity.โ
This is an excerpt from Queteletโs book, A Treatise on Man and the Development of His Faculties. He became somewhat obsessed with identifying the physical characteristics of lโhomme moyen or the โideal man.โ
Stating there is an ideal human automatically suggests there are humans who are inferior or less than the ideal, and now we had the formula to measure it. ๐๐ฉ๐ข๐ต ๐ค๐ฐ๐ถ๐ญ๐ฅ ๐จ๐ฐ ๐ธ๐ณ๐ฐ๐ฏ๐จ, ๐ณ๐ช๐จ๐ฉ๐ต?
Swipe through to learn more about the history of the BMI, why it was created, and the reason it is basically BS.
Weโre you surprised to learn this? Letโs talk about it!
(Hydrostatic Weighing and Dexa scans remain the two of the most reliable diagnostic tools to report body fat to lean mass ratio. More on those in a later post ๐)