Understanding Your BMI.

Body mass index, or BMI for short, is a measure of your body fat based on your weight and height. In general, the higher the BMI, the more at risk a person is of being considered overweight or obese. In fact, BMI is the number one indicator used to measure obesity around the world. But BMI has faced a lot of backlash in the past for not being an accurate representation of a person's health or fitness level.

BMI is simple to understand, and you can see how to calculate yours here. You take your weight in kilograms and divide it by your height in meters squared. Based on the number you get, you can fall into any of the four categories below for both men and women:

·         Underweight: BMI is less than 18.5

·         Normal weight: BMI is 18.5 to 24.9

·         Overweight: BMI is 25 to 29.9

·         Obese: BMI is 30 or more


 Related: BMI? Is It Any Good To Check If You Have A Healthy Weight.

The Real Reason Americans Are So Fat.

The logic seems impeccable: In 1980, the U.S. government officially recommended that all Americans eat a low-fat diet. The entire country fell in line. Food manufacturers cranked out low-fat versions of everything from pastries to pork (“the other white meat”). 

Nutrition scientists published studies in support of higher-carb, lower-fat diets. The media jumped on board.

You know what happened next: Americans got really fat, really fast. The obesity rate tripled, and with it came a tsunami of type 2 diabetes. The dual epidemics even got a clever name—“diabesity”—making it the Brangelina of diseases. More to the point, it caught everyone by surprise, including the experts who thought no one could get fat on a low-fat diet.

Vegetable Oil? Could It Be The Cause Of An Obesity Crisis?

A new report suggests that 50 percent of the world isn’t at a healthy weight, and it may be in large part due to the huge increase in vegetable oil the world now consumes.

Tim Benton, a professor at the University of Leeds, told the BBC that while vegetable oil used to be a rare commodity, soybean and palm oil are now so ubiquitous that they’re considered two of the main eight food groups (along with wheat, rice, corn, sugar, barley, and potatoes) that provide 85 percent of the world’s calories.

Over the past three decades, trade agreements have made vegetable oil cheaper and easier to produce, export, and import. This has had some positive externalities, as Benton points out. Namely, it’s helped reduce famine in a big way, and has allowed the “poorest of poor access to cheap calories.”