Rasmussen Nicolas
School of Humanities, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia.
J Hist Behav Sci. 2019 Oct;55(4):299-318. doi: 10.1002/jhbs.21991. Epub 2019 Jul 23.
In 1972 Body Mass Index, BMI was put forth by physiologist Ancel Keys in his analysis of Seven Countries Study heart disease epidemiological data as the best available measure of obesity. This work culminated more than 20 years of effort by Keys to discredit the accepted measure of obesity, weight relative to height, along with a major public health campaign in the United States to fight heart disease through weight control. Here, I retrace his campaign to replace weight as a measure of obesity and analyze its methodology and relationship to the broader research field of heart disease epidemiology. I also explore why the epidemiological community accepted BMI despite Keys's failure to demonstrate that either it or adiposity (body fat content), were superior as predictors of heart disease-one of the Seven Countries Study's central aims.
1972年，生理学家安塞尔·基斯在分析七国研究的心脏病流行病学数据时提出了身体质量指数（BMI），将其作为衡量肥胖的最佳可用指标。这项工作是基斯20多年努力的成果，他试图诋毁已被接受的肥胖衡量指标——体重与身高的比值，同时美国发起了一场通过控制体重来对抗心脏病的重大公共卫生运动。在这里，我追溯他用BMI取代体重作为肥胖衡量指标的运动，并分析其方法以及与更广泛的心脏病流行病学研究领域的关系。我还探讨了尽管基斯未能证明BMI或肥胖度（身体脂肪含量）作为心脏病预测指标更优——这是七国研究的核心目标之一，但流行病学界为何仍接受了BMI。
