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    Time to Say Goodbye to the B.M.I.?

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    The body mass index has long been criticized as a flawed indicator of health. A replacement has been gaining support: the body roundness index.Move over, body mass index. Make room for roundness — to be precise, the body roundness index.The body mass index, or B.M.I., is a ratio of height to weight that has long been used as a medical screening tool. It is one of the most widely used health metrics but also one of the most reviled, because it is used to label people overweight, obese or extremely obese.The classifications have been questioned by athletes like the American Olympic rugby player Ilona Maher, whose B.M.I. of 30 technically puts her on the cusp of obesity. “But alas,” she said on Instagram, addressing online trolls who tried to shame her about her weight, “I’m going to the Olympics and you’re not.”Advocates for overweight individuals and people of color note that the formula was developed nearly 200 years ago and based exclusively on data from men, most of them white, and that it was never intended for medical screening. Even physicians have weighed in on the shortcomings of B.M.I. The American Medical Association warned last year that B.M.I. is an imperfect metric that doesn’t account for racial, ethnic, age, sex and gender diversity. It can’t differentiate between individuals who carry a lot of muscle and those with fat in all the wrong places.“Based on B.M.I., Arnold Schwarzenegger when he was a bodybuilder would have been categorized as obese and needing to lose weight,” said Dr. Wajahat Mehal, director of the Metabolic Health and Weight Loss Program at Yale University.“But as soon as you measured his waist, you’d see, ‘Oh, it’s 32 inches.’”So welcome a new metric: the body roundness index. B.R.I. is just what it sounds like — a measure of how round or circlelike you are, using a formula that takes into account height and waist, but not weight.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Are Some Ultraprocessed Foods Worse Than Others?

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      A new study may offer the biggest clues yet.Name a common condition — heart disease, Type 2 diabetes, cancer, dementia, irritable bowel syndrome — and chances are good that following a diet high in ultraprocessed foods has been linked to it.But the ultraprocessed food category is large and wide-ranging. It makes up an estimated 73 percent of the U.S. food supply, and contains stereotypically “unhealthy” products like sodas, candies and hot dogs as well as seemingly “healthy” ones like whole grain breads, breakfast cereals, flavored yogurts and plant milks.It’s a “hodgepodge of foods,” some of which are likely more harmful than others, said Josiemer Mattei, an associate professor of nutrition at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.On Monday, Dr. Mattei and her colleagues published one of the largest and longest studies on ultraprocessed foods and heart health to date. In it, they analyzed the risks of consuming these foods, and teased out the worst offenders.An Overall Risk of Ultraprocessed FoodsThe new study, published in a Lancet journal, included more than 200,000 adults in the United States. They filled out detailed diet questionnaires beginning in the 1980s and early 1990s, and completed them again every two to four years for about 30 years. Most of the participants in the study were white and worked as health professionals. The researchers looked at how the participants’ ultraprocessed food consumption related to their chances of developing cardiovascular disease.After adjusting for risk factors like smoking, family health history, sleep and exercise, the researchers found that those who consumed the most ultraprocessed foods were 11 percent more likely to develop cardiovascular disease and 16 percent more likely to develop coronary heart disease during the study period, compared with those who consumed the least ultraprocessed foods. The highest consumers also had a slightly, but not significantly, elevated risk of stroke.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Do You Have Healthy Brain Habits? Take This Quiz to Find Out.

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      What can I do to take good care of my brain and lower my risk for a neurological disease? That’s the No. 1 question neurologist Dr. Jonathan Rosand hears from his patients (and their family members) at the Massachusetts General Hospital McCance Center for Brain Health. To help answer it, he and his colleagues, with […] More

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      What Do Olympians Eat for Breakfast?

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      The road to the Olympics is paved with carbs.An estimated 15,000 athletes are prepared to compete in Paris this summer. Most will arrive with detailed plans for what to eat before, during and after their events.“Part of their training is their nutrition,” said Sarah Wick, a sports dietitian and the director of sports nutrition for the Ohio State Sports Medicine Institute. “It’s just like strength and conditioning. They need to know just what nutrition they need, and when they need it.”High-performance athletes require plenty of carbohydrates for energy and enough protein to repair their muscles and recover between workouts. Every event and athlete has different needs, but they all require fuel, and lots of it. Still, that doesn’t mean they’re eating only health foods.Usain Bolt, for one, estimated that he ate 100 McDonalds chicken nuggets each day at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, because they were a familiar food he knew his stomach could handle. He went on to win three gold medals.We asked a handful of Paris-bound Olympians to share their food diaries and photos from a typical training week in the lead-up to the Games.Here are their breakfast routines, along with a few other snack highlights.Getty ImagesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Search Underway in Greece for British TV Doctor Michael Mosley

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      Mr. Mosely, a popular science journalist, disappeared while on a walk on the Greek island of Symi. He was last seen at a bus stop on Wednesday afternoon.Greek authorities on Thursday said they were searching for Michael Mosley, a prominent British journalist and television presenter who had gone missing a day earlier while on a walk on the island of Symi.Mr. Mosley, 67, was reported missing by his wife, Clare Bailey, on Wednesday afternoon, according to Constantina Dimoglidou, a spokeswoman for the Greek police. The couple had arrived in Symi on Tuesday, planning to stay for a week.“We’re looking everywhere for him,” Ms. Dimoglidou said, adding that the local fire service and volunteers were involved in the search. The Greek fire service on Thursday said a team of six firefighters was looking for a missing foreign national on Symi, part of the Dodecanese islands in the Aegean Sea, and said drones had been sent from the nearby island of Rhodes.Mr. Mosley told friends on Wednesday afternoon that he was going to walk about two miles from the Agios Nikolaos area back to the main town of Symi, where the couple was staying, according to Ms. Dimoglidou. He was last seen by a witness at a bus stop in Pedi, about halfway between the two locations, and did not have his cellphone on him when he disappeared, she said.It was possible, she said, that Mr. Mosley had become dizzy from the heat. Temperatures in Symi have hovered around 95 degrees Fahrenheit this week, and the weather authorities in Greece had urged vigilance over the risk of high heat.“It’s rugged terrain with high spots, so it’s possible that he fell,” Ms. Dimoglidou said. His disappearance also spurred a call for information in a local Facebook group, in which a post said that Mr. Mosley had set off at around 1:30 p.m. and never appeared at his accommodation.Mr. Mosley trained as a doctor before becoming a documentary maker and a science journalist who dispensed advice on diet, fasting and other health habits. He became famous for his myth-busting work on diet and is widely known as a proponent of intermittent fasting, writing several books on the subject. A longtime producer and presenter for the BBC, he is the host of the broadcaster’s “Just One Thing” health podcast, and was nominated in 2002 for an Emmy on “The Human Face,” a series examining the science behind beauty. More recently, he released two series with the British Channel 4 broadcaster investigating obesity in Britain and the nutrition behind the grocery shopping of everyday consumers. More

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      Have Wine for Breakfast, Put On a 51-Pound Suit and Get to the Battlefield

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      One by one, Greek soldiers, bellies full from a breakfast of red wine and dry bread, armed and clad themselves in a bulky, buglike suit of armor as they prepared for battle.They aimed their spears at wooden targets, and their chariot was connected to a treadmill motor, but for 11 hours, these elite soldiers from the Hellenic Armed Forces pretended to fight as if it was the 15th century B.C.They had been recruited for a study to determine if the Dendra panoply, a suit of armor from 3,500 years ago considered to be one of the oldest known from the Bronze Age in Europe, could be worn in battle. Or if it was only ceremonial, as some scholars have previously argued.The soldiers wore a replica of the suit, and scientists tracked their blood-glucose levels, heart rates and other physiological measures, finding that the men’s bodies could handle the strain of the armor, according to a paper published in the journal PLOS One on May 22.Andreas Flouris, the lead author of the paper and the director of the FAME Lab at the University of Thessaly in Volos, Greece, where the battles took place, said that the simulated combat, as well as other research components, showed that the armor would have been “a very advanced piece of military technology” at the time.“If you’re carrying a piece of wood or a stone or maybe something with a bit of bronze in the front, like a spear, somebody wearing this armor looks like a giant robot in front of you,” said Dr. Flouris, a professor of physiology at the University of Thessaly.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      How E. Coli in Food Makes People Sick

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      The bacteria sickens an estimated 265,000 Americans each year.Last week, federal officials announced recalls of ground beef and organic walnuts because they were potentially contaminated with E. coli bacteria that can make people sick.The recalls involve more than 16,000 pounds of ground beef distributed by Cargill Meat Solutions and sold at Wal-Mart stores in 11 states, as well as organic shelled walnuts sold in bulk in natural food and co-op stores in 19 states. So far, the recalled walnuts have been associated with 12 illnesses, including seven hospitalizations, in Washington State and California.No illnesses have been reported from the ground beef recall, although ground beef remains one of the most common sources of illnesses from these bacteria, which are responsible for an estimated 265,000 illnesses annually. Most of these, however, are not diagnosed or tracked by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention because people often recover on their own without visiting a doctor, said Matthew Wise, chief of the C.D.C.’s Outbreak Response and Prevention Branch.Here’s what you need to know about E. coli to stay safe.Where You’ll Find the BacteriaThere are many different kinds of E. coli, and most of them are harmless to humans, said microbiologist Edward G. Dudley, director of the E. Coli Reference Center at Pennsylvania State University.Some types do, however, make people sick, he said. Those that most commonly cause illness in humans, known as Shiga toxin-producing E. coli, primarily reside in cow intestines, which is why they often contaminate ground beef. The E. coli implicated in the ongoing walnut and ground beef recalls are a type of Shiga toxin-producing E. coli.Because these bacteria eventually work their way out of animal intestines and into feces, they can also contaminate farm soil, which is why E. coli outbreaks are also often tied to produce, Dr. Dudley explained. They can also contaminate ponds, lakes and rivers.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Meet the Men Who Eat Meat

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      With the help of Joe Rogan, a social media trend with staying power emerged from a 2018 book, “The Carnivore Diet.”“Girl dinner” this is not.In a social media trend that won’t stop, ravenous meat eaters, mostly men, show themselves chomping on rib-eye steaks, bacon and innards.In a recent online video, a popular TikTok user who posts as @carnivoreray unveiled a new snack recipe. After sliding sheet pans packed with fatty bacon strips into the oven, he melted two sticks of butter from grass-fed cows. Once the bacon was crisp, he poured the melted butter into the sheet pans. Then he popped the concoction into the freezer.The next morning, the influencer bit into the frozen treat while filming himself for his roughly 170,000 TikTok followers. “This tastes like candy,” he said. (The person behind the account did not reply to requests for comment.)The video belongs to an enduring social media genre quarterbacked largely by muscular fellows who claim that a meat-heavy diet is the key to mental and physical well-being.A stricter version of high-fat, low-carb regimens like the Atkins diet and keto, the carnivore diet consists of meat, seafood and eggs — period. While some add dairy and a little fruit to the mix, the strictest proponents adhere to what they call B.B.B.E — that is, beef, bacon, butter and eggs.TikTok and Instagram are awash in videos of these men (and some women) feasting on a petting zoo’s worth of meat products. Some boast about having not consumed a vegetable in months. They also claim health benefits including drastic weight loss and sharpened mental acuity. Some of the so-called “meatfluencers” forgo not only carbs but also dishware, eating straight from the cutting board.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Oprah Takes on Weight Stigma in the Ozempic Era in New Weight Loss Special

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      In a new special, Ms. Winfrey highlighted how new drugs have changed the way we talk about weight and willpower.Oprah Winfrey, a longtime figure in the national conversation about dieting and weight bias, devoted an hourlong prime-time special on Monday to the rise of weight loss drugs. Her goal, she said, was to “start releasing the stigma and the shame and the judgment” around weight and weight loss — starting with her own, she said.“For 25 years, making fun of my weight was national sport,” Ms. Winfrey said in the show, titled “An Oprah Special: Shame, Blame and the Weight Loss Revolution.”Shame has become a focal point in that conversation as new drugs like Ozempic and Mounjaro, which are widely used for weight loss, shift how people think about treating obesity. When Ms. Winfrey disclosed in December that she was taking a medication to manage her weight, she said she was “done with the shaming” that had followed her through decades of dieting.Many patients who start taking these medications say they have felt shamed for struggling with their weight, and then shamed for taking weight loss drugs, said Dr. Michelle Hauser, the obesity medicine director of the Stanford Lifestyle and Weight Management Center, who was not involved with the special.“People just are constantly getting this message, both internal bias and then external bias from other people,” she said. Some might think, “‘I shouldn’t have to rely on medication, I shouldn’t be dependent on them,’” she added.Dr. Hauser tells patients to instead ask themselves: “Would you tell someone that about their blood pressure medication?”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More