Quote:
|
Originally Posted by whswhs
There was also that Norwegian survey I've seen described in a couple of places (1.8 million subjects followed over 10 years), which found that optimal longevity went with BMI 25-30.
|
As far as that goes, BMI is a generic application and isn't always a great individual guide. There's a couple of points of BMI which are easily attributable to body frame and people who have large blocky bone structure vs. people who have fine birdlike bone structure may have a much as a 3-4 point BMI variation difference at the same health level.
Not even to mention that muscle, and a certain level of physical/weight training is very beneficial, but it may increase BMI, since BMI doesn't say anything about body fat %.
Norwegians, as a whole, tend to have large blocky bone structures, which means without any further detail, they'll have a BMI a couple of points above average with the same level of body fat.
There's also certain biological adaptations in people from Northern climates, see the Eskimos/Inuits, which give populations in those climates the ability to have higher body fat %, (as blubber protection from the cold? *grin*), with less detrimental health effects.
Results from people in those cold climates cannot be directly ported into population groups in temperate climates.