On: How the Idea of a ‘Normal’ Person Got Invented

[btilly]

The BMI is more right than wrong. The strength of a physical object varies with cross-area, so the strength of your heart varies as height squared. The amount of work it has to do varies as mass, which does tend to scale as height cubed.

The result is that height and heart disease are correlated. See http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25051127 for a random verification.

[Retric → btilly]

IMO it's a mixed bag. I agree it works for heart disease, obesity, etc. But, it's also used for anorexia where it seems like a poor fit.