I was reading an article today online from The New Yorker about why Americans are so fat. I definitely agree that the general population is large and getting larger and many people can be considered obese, however, in the second paragraph they “roughly define” obesity as being measured by a Body Mass Index (BMI) of 27 or greater.

This is about as helpful as diagnosing personality disorders with the use of horoscopes! The BMI charts are worthless as they don’t take body composition (percentage of fat, muscle, bone, water-weight, etc) into account in any way, and instead just rely on a height vs weight divisor.

There are no shortage of useless algorithms out there, but my biggest problem with this particular one comes from it’s use in the media, the government, and insurance companies.

Did you know that you can be denied insurance coverage based solely on your BMI? My workout partner is in no way obese. He is a solid block of muscle at 5’10″ and 225 lbs. However, recently he was denied life insurance solely on his BMI.

Then there are the government agencies that still push this index around like it could have any sense of worth. But what do you expect from governmental bureaucracy?

The one that confuses me the most is that medical doctors would even consider using such an antiquated idea that a persons physical health could be even remotely determined by a simple division problem, let alone the health of your heart or as an indicator of your prevalence for heart disease.

So what can you do with this information? Like with anything, knowledge is power. Knowing that your doctor, or insurance company, or whomever might be using this algorithm to determine your health status, means that you should know your BMI and know if you fall within a range that may cause them concern. I personally am 26.3 which is considered just under obese, while in truth I am more like a sculpted Greek god… (kidding), but I am in very good shape and in no way obese. So knowing that, I have the knowledge to question that statistic and provide evidence of my fitness. I can ask an insurance company if they will accept another indicator such as a body fat measurement, etc.

So figure out what your BMI is, so you can be forewarned, and learn why it really doesn’t mean a thing… then you’ll be in a place of knowledge when you hear about it again.

For the last couple of days I’ve been having strange heart issues. My heart goes… beat, beat, pause… BEAT, beat. Maybe every 10 or 20 beats I get an irregular one. This has been disconcerting to me to say the least. Well as I’m driving in to work yesterday morning it was particularly bad and I was actually worrying enough to start some research into it.

I did a little Google research and found many descriptions of this phenomenon. Like just about any physical symptom it can be caused by a number of different and completely separate things, and may or may not be a serious issue depending on how often and what other symptoms are present… like dizziness, high beats per minute, etc.

I haven’t found any good explanation about why I might have started to get them the last few days. I’m not stressed (at least I don’t feel stressed… although I did start working again), I guess my caffeine intake has increased and my potassium intake has decreased (bananas). For many months I have been having protein shakes with a banana and blueberries in it, but recently I started eating a lot more eggs and went away from the banana shakes. Maybe this had some unintended side effects.

Knowing a little bit about how the body functions, my first thought was being deficient in potassium as this mineral is highly important in regulation of your heart beat. Also being in very good shape with no other issues present and the condition happening out of the blue and for a few days also points to a lack of something in the diet.

So my first order of business was to eat a banana. This did seem to help within an hour or so, and I haven’t felt them since. Was it a coincidence and would have gone away on it’s own anyway, or did something in the banana… most likely potassium… do the trick?

Either way I’m going to cut out some of the coffee and just do green tea at work, plus make sure I get my regular banana each day in a shake. There are two parts of the body I just do not want to have problems with… my heart, and my brain.

So if you are having weird heart beats, eat a banana it just might help. If the banana doesn’t help, go see your doctor.