Whole Foods' John Mackey Finds a New Way to Antagonize Custo

[Vegan Joe]

http://blogs.villagevoice.com/forkintheroad/archives/2010/01/whole_foods_joh.php

 

No sooner had John Mackey's stance on health care start to slither out of the collective conscience then he discovered a new way to piss people off: give higher discounts to Whole Foods' skinny employees.

 

The Daily News reports that as part of its new health care initiative designed to cut its health care costs, the store is offering a 30 percent to employees who don't smoke and have low cholesterol, blood pressure, and body mass index (BMI).

 

Workers who sign up for the voluntary plan will receive ...

[Fallen_Horse]

If they just change that BMI requirement to a bodyfat % requirement, then I don't have a problem here...

[xjohanx]

This is pretty cool and disturbing. BMI might be a worthless measurement for 5% of the population but for the rest it's pretty damn good.

[beforewisdom]

This is pretty cool and disturbing. BMI might be a worthless measurement for 5% of the population but for the rest it's pretty damn good.

 

I disagree.

 

The BMI not only doesn't account for body composition, it doesn't account for sex or frame size. Do you think a man of your height should weigh in the same range as a woman of your height?

 

The BMI was designed by the UN for evaluating starvation, not being overfed.

 

The only reason it is a working standard is that people consider some standard to be better than no standard at all.

[xjohanx]

A woman my height doesn't have to weigh exactly the same, but even if she did would that make her unhealthy? I'm a pretty bad example btw because I belong to the 5% that isn't suitable for the BMI scale. Of course the BMI has limited use but would you say there are many people with a BMI over 30 that are not fat? Would you say there are a lot of people with a BMI over 35 that are not obese? Probably not.

Of course it would be better to measure everyones bodycomp but it simply isn't possible atm.

 

And even if the BMI scale was invented by the UN as a measurement of starvation (I have no idea if that's true) it has been well evaluated since. That's not a real argument against it, it's like me saying "corn is used for feeding bovine and because of that we shouldn't eat it". Corn can be eaten by both cows and us just like BMI can be used both as a measurement of starvation and overfeeding.

[medman]

Besides, a healthy man and woman of similar height might WOULD have similar BMIs. Men naturally have more muscle, which can inflate your BMI if you're very athletic, while women naturally have a higher body fat percentage, as they should to be healthy. So if you're a healthy, fit (non-bodybuilder) man, and a woman of similar height has 15lbs less muscle and 15lbs more fat, that is a healthy, fit woman.

 

This holds true for the vast majority of the population...people like xjohanx with bodyfat percentages in the decimal range don't count

[CollegeB]

A grocery store not encouraging people to be fat seems kind of counter intuitive.