SIndex

BMI is so unsatisfactory. Imagine you are inside a tube that is exactly the same height. Now imagine this magic tube can re-arrange your body without hurting you. It will contract and re-arrange until there is no more empty space left. BMI represent the diameter of that tube.

The theory is based on several deeply flawed assumptions:

• People have very similar density.
• Diameter, therefore, is a good proxy for figure.
• Figure, then, is a good proxy for the how much fat in the body.
• That, of course, is a direct proxy to how healthy one is.

With these, they surveyed the population and published guidelines. Soon, governments picked up the concept and published the obesity numbers. It spiraled out of proportion.

Anyone can stand on a scale, compute BMI with a simple calculator, look up the website, and knew where does he or she stand. Government can open the huge database of people’s height and weight and does the same. This is quite powerful. Up until now, no one has come up with a simple (one number, self measurable, huge data already collected) replacement to BMI.

Since what we really want to know is how fat we are, we should substitute BMI with body fat ratio. But all accepted methodologies are basically impossible to do in private, at home, and for free. Enter the SIndex!

The mechanics is simple by design. Measure the circumferences of your waist and hip and divide the sum of them by your height. The idea is also simple: this should be a reasonable substitute to the body fat ratio.

We all knew that most of our stored fat is in either the belly or the hip. My doctor told me that “gut measure” is an excellent predictor to heart diseases. So waist line size is a good proxy for fat contents in the body and also for how healthy one is. Since some store fat on the waist line and other on the hip, we would simply measure both and add them up. The next natural step is to normalize them for height.

I will leave it to you to name this new measure.