Tracy, CA Marine Recruit Comatose After Workout (trying to lose weight to enter boot camp)

[Kadie]

Tracy Marine Recruit Comatose After Workout
Danny Ruf Tried To Lose Weight To Enter Boot Camp

POSTED: 2:12 pm PDT July 21, 2009
UPDATED: 2:38 pm PDT July 21, 2009

TRACY, Calif. -- A 22-year-old Tracy man collapsed and went into a coma after trying to lose weight so he could enter Marine boot camp.

Danny Ruf was working out along with a Marine recruiter at In-Shape City on 11th Street in Tracy last Tuesday. Ruf was trying to lose 12 pounds to make the height and weight requirements after enlisting in the Marine Corps.

A Marine Corps spokesman said it's not uncommon for a recruiter to help new recruits meet the physical requirements.

Tracy fire Chief Andy Kellogg said fire paramedics responded to the call of an unconscious man, and Ruf was later transported to Sutter Tracy Community Hospital.

According to the Tracy Press, Ruf is now at San Francisco's Pacific Medical Center with possible kidney and liver failure. He's listed in critical condition.

http://www.kcra.com/news/20133714/detail.html

[MadMaddie]

1. Sad...

[imdjh]

2. He doesn't look chubby

[Geoff R. Casavant]

3. The military height/weight charts don't take body types into account

Those with larger frames or more muscle weigh the same as someone who is just overweight. It's the curse of the BMI.

[atreides1]

4. Curse of the BMI is right.

The BMI was introduced in the early 19th century by a Belgian named Lambert Adolphe Jacques Quetelet. He was a mathematician, not a physician. He produced the formula to give a quick and easy way to measure the degree of obesity of the general population to assist the government in allocating resources. In other words, it is a 200-year-old hack.

There is no physiological reason to square a person's height (Quetelet had to square the height to get a formula that matched the overall data. If you can't fix the data, rig the formula!). Moreover, it ignores waist size, which is a clear indicator of obesity level.

It makes no allowance for the relative proportions of bone, muscle and fat in the body. But bone is denser than muscle and twice as dense as fat, so a person with strong bones, good muscle tone and low fat will have a high BMI. Thus, athletes and fit, health-conscious movie stars who work out a lot tend to find themselves classified as overweight or even obese.

The CDC says on its Web site that "the BMI is a reliable indicator of body fatness for people." This is a fundamental error of logic. For example, if I tell you my birthday present is a bicycle, you can conclude that my present has wheels. That's correct logic. But it does not work the other way round. If I tell you my birthday present has wheels, you cannot conclude I got a bicycle. I could have received a car. Because of how Quetelet came up with it, if a person is fat or obese, he or she will have a high BMI. But as with my birthday present, it doesn't work the other way round. A high BMI does not mean an individual is even overweight, let alone obese. It could mean the person is fit and healthy, with very little fat

Because the majority of people today (and in Quetelet's time) lead fairly sedentary lives and are not particularly active, the formula tacitly assumes low muscle mass and high relative fat content. It applies moderately well when applied to such people because it was formulated by focusing on them. But it gives exactly the wrong answer for a large and significant section of the population, namely the lean, fit and healthy. Quetelet is also the person who came up with the idea of "the average man." That's a useful concept, but if you try to apply it to any one person, you come up with the absurdity of a person with 2.4 children. Averages measure entire populations and often don't apply to individuals.

Insurance companies sometimes charge higher premiums for people with a high BMI. Among such people are all those fit individuals with good bone and muscle and little fat, who will live long, healthy lives during which they will have to pay those greater premiums.

Continued reliance on the BMI means doctors don't feel the need to use one of the more scientifically sound methods that are available to measure obesity levels. Those alternatives cost a little bit more, but they give far more reliable results

[MADem]

5. It's actually worse for the female personnel. For the longest time, they used

life insurance height/weight charts from the forties for the women, that hewed to more of an "appearance standard" than to a health standard.

They corrected that in the nineties, but it's still a clumsy effort. There is no "room" for people who are naturally thick, with large dense bones, and who are naturally better able to carry more weight.