Family

Imagine this:

Billy was only twenty years old when he found out he was a father. He barely knew the mother, they'd met only once before when they'd had a one-night-stand that resulted in the conception of Susanna, their daughter.

Billy was still living with his parents when Susanna was literally left on his doorstep. He'd been studying a degree at university but gave it up to look after his daughter.
His parents were both incredibly supportive. They could see how responsible he had become towards Susanna and they were utterly devoted to their granddaughter.

When Susanna started primary school, Billy was able to return to University to complete his degree in medicine and follow in his fathers footsteps. Whilst he was there he met Lindsay. They married two years after their graduation.
Lindsay loved and cared for Susanna as if she was her own and adopted her as soon as she could after the wedding.

Susanna excelled at school and with the support of her parents she went to University herself to study a degree in Law just like her grandmother had. That was where she met Andrew...

It's a nice story isn't it? Now read this one.

To hell with the mother, what about the rights of that baby girl?

BMI Update

Okay so having whinged enough about how rubbish BMI is, I decided to come up with a better version.

The trouble with BMI is that it only takes your mass and your height. Mass is determined by volume & density, not length.

So making a few assumptions, I've come up with a new index. It can be calculated as follows (Using inches and lbs):

1. Take your hat size (Circumferance of your skull at your forehead) and divide it by pi (3.14).
2. Multiply it by your shoulder width (Try to measure along the top of your shoulders).
3. Multiply this by your height.

You now have a crude measurement of your skelatal volume. Although your actual volume will fluctuate as you lose or gain weight, this is based on fairly static measurements so it should stay the same - the shoulder width may vary slightly.
It isn't accurate to your real volume obviously as your width and depth vary across your body and different people have different shapes.
If you have an disproportionate head for example then this won't give you a fair reflection of your total volume. But it's better than just using height alone.

To obtain my body mass index (I call it a BMV) do the following:

4. Measure your mass in lbs.
5. Divide it by your crude skelatal volume.
6. Multiply it by 1000.

I've no idea what scores are good/bad as it has only been done on myself and my wife - and we're both on a diet at the moment. I figure if more people do it combined with accurate body fat analysis so that we know if they are fat/skinny/ok, then some benchmarking might be possible.

It will never be as reliable as good old fashioned body fat analysis but surely it has to be better than BMI?