Check out this body mass index calculator. The basic principle of bmi is simple: divide weight by the square of your height (which makes sense since you only have two degrees of freedom for size - height and girth, as opposed to height, breadth and width; very few people are wide one way and not the other). This one is exceedingly interesting because it has percentile rank. Observe that someone who is 185 lbs at 5' 6", which is just at the edge of the 'obese' category, is only in the 78% percentile. Holy cow! Or holy buffalo! holy ridiculously fat buffalo that has swallowed two other buffalo whole! This country is fat. Not P-H-A-T, either.

In other news, my profession (biological-type research) I get to watch research minds tinkering with upcoming medical problems. I'm pretty annoyed by obesity-focused research, which explores fundamental underlying biological ways to turn off obesity rather than things like what aspects of American diet contribute to burgeoning Americans. Money, though, lies in selling pills, not in eating well, and that's where the research will go.