August 16, 2004
Olympians Going For The Girth?
Common sense faces a big hurdle when our government's war on fat counts Olympians as Oblimpians. According to the government's flawed Body Mass Index (BMI) standard, over 75 U.S. athletes competing on the biggest stage in sports are officially "overweight" or "obese." The fact that so many super-fit athletes are categorized as fatties is further proof that much of the so-called "obesity epidemic" is based on faulty assumptions and overblown statistics. In 1998, the U.S. government changed the standard by which "overweight" is measured. That decision, which instantly re-classified more than 30 million Americans as overweight, was criticized in the American Journal of Public Health:
Our results are consistent with other studies and fail to justify lowering the overweight threshold on the basis of mortality. Current interpretations of the revised guidelines stigmatize too many people as overweight, fail to account for sex, race/ethnicity, age, and other differences; and ignore the serious health risks associated with low weight and efforts to maintain an unrealistically lean body mass ... This seeming rush to lower the standard for overweight to such a level that 55% of American adults find themselves being declared overweight or obese raises serious concerns.So should kayaker Joe Jacobi (Overweight: 5'7'', 165 lbs) worry about sinking? Should water polo star Tony Azevedo (Overweight: 6'1'', 193 lbs) enter the belly-flop competition instead? Does track star Maurice Greene (Overweight: 5'9'', 176 lbs) belong in the 100-meter waddle? The government's flawed system also views the following gold-medal hopefuls as "overweight" or "obese":
- Cycling: Christian Stahl (Overweight: 5'10'', 200 lbs)
- Rowing: Henry Nuzum (Overweight: 6'2'', 210 lbs)
- Tennis: Taylor Dent (Overweight: 6'2'', 195 lbs)
- Fencing: Jon Tiomkin (Overweight: 5'11'', 190 lbs)
- Basketball: Tim Duncan (Overweight: 7'0'', 260 lbs)
- Table Tennis: Ilija Lupulsku (Overweight: 5'11'', 195 lbs)
- Track and Field: Casey Malone (Overweight: 6'9'', 265 lbs)
- Boxing: Jason Estrada (Obese: 6'0'', 240 lbs)
- Track and Field: Reese Hoffa (Obese: 6'0'', 253 lbs)
- Wrestling: Kerry McCoy (Obese: 6'3'', 250 lbs)
- Judo: Rhadi Fergason (Obese: 5'9'', 220 lbs)
Click here to go for the gold and see if the government is calling you fat.
