Ooo, this is fun. This story comes via NiT, who got it via Freedonian, who got it via Coble over at Music City Bloggers.*
I admit, I hadn’t previously considered the insurance company angle to the BMI, but I will be mulling that over.
Here’s what I don’t get. Why don’t we, instead of focusing on the BMI, focus on a set of health standards.
If you’re a healthy, able-bodied adult you ought to be able to, say, walk for an hour at a normal pace without being winded or able to exercise aerobically for thirty minutes without feeling like dying afterwards or something. And you ought to be getting however many servings of vegetables a day and so many hours of sleep.
You know what I mean? Set real standards that would benefit everyone across the board instead of using weight as a stand-in. I don’t need to know what a “healthy” body looks like. I want to have a guide to having a healthy life.
It makes me highly suspicious of the motives of the federal government that they’d rather focus on that number (the BMI) than on real things that would benefit a lot of people.
*I feel a little remiss for not saying anything about the ongoing shake-up at NiT. I thought I didn’t really have anything to say about it and then I got an email from Christian Grantham asking if I’d like to take some days over there.
That made me feel like I should be clear.
So, let me be. I have nothing against NiT. In fact, just as my own opinion, I really am enjoying having both NiT and Music City Bloggers. On MCB, I have a lot of voices I’ve come to love and respect over the years and lord knows I’d pay good money to read Roger Abramson AND over at NiT, I’m getting a kick out of William and Alison (and even Nemesis Girl). If the defection of a large stable of writers from NiT means that WKRN goes out and finds new voices and gives them a shot, well, hell, I’m all for that.
But if Christian Grantham thinks that he and I are on good terms, that he can write me and ask me for favors… Good god, man, are you nuts? We’re not okay. A year ago, you may have thought you were just riling up the locals in order to make a name for yourself that you could then parlay into better things and that such behavior was okay (Here and here for those of you playing along at home), but I thought it sucked.
And I, being the local so riled, have not forgotten. I find that behavior dishonorable and your handling of the whole situation to be so disingenuous that I feel an almost spiritual duty to have nothing to do with you.
How could you not notice?
So, yes, as long as you’re the one responsible for NiT, Grantham, NiT should not ask me for help.
When Nemesis Girl (I’m trying to act on good faith that these are all different people–Nemesis Girl, Alison, William–and not avatars of Grantham, but I actually have very little faith in that being the case) says, “What used to be a priority for bloggers seems now to have settled into the option category. NiT brought community together, through the incredible, insightful, and talented Miss G.” I hear that and my heart does go out to NiT, because it’s hard to watch something I care about flounder. But NiT worked because, regardless of what you thought of Brittney, you felt like there was a genuine person behind the scenes, working with NiT’s best interests at heart (even if she screwed up sometimes, even if people disagreed with her about what NiT’s best interests were).
My interactions with Grantham online and off have not led me to believe that he’s a genuine person and I have no confidence that he has NiT’s best interest at heart.
That, more than anything, is what scares me for NiT. Not all the defections, not the Music City Bloggers, not the change in upper management at WKRN–but that the man pulling the strings on NiT now has never given any indication that he actually has any interest in this community or desire to foster continuing good will.
(Yes, I am still pissed about my dog. Let that be a lesson, when it comes to her, I hold a grudge.)
Filed under: America how can I write a holy litany in your silly moo
Ok, I’m a dog lover. The dog thing got to me. See, I’ve never understood this thing about wanting to ban pit bulls. Ok, maybe they are an agressive dog. We used to have a Chesapeake Bay Retriever, they are definitely agressive but we did something about it. We hired a dog trainer to train us on how to train our dog. And he was the best dog ever because of that. This isn’t about bad dogs, it’s about bad owners. Now if he government would just put down the owners of bad dogs, this whole problem of bad dogs would go away faster than you could say “Boo!”
NiT right now reminds me of when Jack Skellington took over Christmas.
In the same way that Skellington got “Holiday” but was tone-deaf to “Christmas”, Grantham gets “Internet” but is tone-deaf to “Web 2.0″
Funniest. Headline. Ever.
I can understand you or anyone else not thinking of the insurance company angle. My own situation was not a typical one. Most people getting the fuzzy side of the lollipop when it comes to the BMI standard are there because they’re carrying a few extra pounds of fat, although the standard is so strict that it catches people in the net unnecessarily.
At the time of my physical years ago, I was carrying about thirty pounds more lean mass than I am now. My bodyfat was incredibly low. Size 32 jeans were snug, but fit, and I was muscular enough that I’m pretty sure the doctor was looking for needle marks on me.
Yet I paid about 35% more for insurance because “obesity” made me such a terrible risk. I was paying only slightly less than a truly obese diabetic friend of mine.
I like your idea about a true physical to accurately examine health. I could have gone all day on the cardio equipment.
Thanks, B. Newscoma sang your praises when she was in town a few weeks ago.
Heh. I’m pudging up in my middle age, but in my 20s and 30s when I was a dancer I was in peak condition. And I carried a lot of muscle mass in my legs. And when I’d visit the doctor, they’d put me on a scale and start to say something to me about my weight, and then they’d look at me and do a double-take and ask to weigh me again because I wasn’t supposed to weigh that much, looking like I did.
Get your eyes off the standardized charts and deal with the people, you know? Anyone who does alright on stress tests and aerobics ought not to be hassled.
I always wanted to be a dancer…
It’s never too late to have fun with it.
I was thinking, too, about that chart Ampersand over at Amptoons had that showed that people who were in the mildly overweight category seemed to do live longer than the people in the acceptable range. How is it, if being overweight is unhealthy, that according to the government’s own charts, being overweight is healthy?
Anyway, it doesn’t matter. I’d still like real guidelines that had to do with one’s actual health. Shoot, I could sit on my couch and snort coke all day and never eat and I’ll be skinny. I wouldn’t be healthy, but I’d be skinny. Is that really any better?
I was at my healthiest BMI-wise when after leaving the gym, I would fire up a cancer stick, go to the bar and drink my dinner, then duck into the bathroom for a little nose candy.
What Sar said. I “was at my healthiest BMI-wise” when I had a raging, undiagnosed thyroid problem, and I was sick and miserable all the time.
Just for the record, Mother Sarcastro, we here at Tiny Cat Pants are happy that your son has cleaned up his act and delighted to see that he has managed to pass on the “dimples of great trouble” to another generation.
Rock please come back to the wwe were al missing u nd we reali reali miss u please come back rocky….