Lecture 1 - Genetics and evolutionary theories of bodyweight Flashcards
Why do we need the BMI equation?
Allows a measure of weight that takes height into consideration.
Where did the history of BMI start?
Health insurance companies in America wanted to make and save money
What year did the ‘normal weight tables’ get created?
1900s
What year was body frame (small, medium and large) added to the ‘normal weight tables’? Who added them?
1937 and Dublin & Lotha
What year was the ‘Quetelet Index’ created and who created it?
1832 and Keys (1972)
What year did the WHO create graphs to show BMI?
1992
What are the strengths of BMI
- Simple and low cost
- Strong correlation between self-report and measured BMI
- Correlates with direct measures of body fat such as underwater weighing
What are the criticisms of BMI?
- No adequate account for age, gender or race (greater bone density/muscle mass in black people so higher BMI in black population)
- Indirect measure of body fat (doesn’t take muscle mass into consideration)
What are the risk factors of childhood obesity and overweight?
- Type 2 diabetes
- Incidence of metabolic syndrome in youth
- Obesity as an adult (Biro & Wien, 2010)
What are the risk factors of adult obesity and overweight?
- Cardio-vascular disease (Ortego, Lavie & Blair, 2016)
- Type 2 diabetes (Mokdad et al., 2003)
- Some cancers (Font-Burgada, SUn & Karin, 2016)
What are the areas that research suggests a link between obesity and cognitive function?
- Intellectual functioning
- Psychomotor performance and speed
- Visual construction
- Concept formation and set shifting
Decision making
What are the areas where research contradicts itself on the link between obesity and cognitive function?
- Visual memory
- Verbal memory
- Complex attention
- Delay discounting
- Inhibition
