Editor,

RE: "Obesity: Why is it on an upward trend?” (The New Times, June 27).

Nice article, but many of the facts are sadly outdated. The Body Mass Index (BMI) is almost 200 years old, and it gives meaningless data. If a 20-year old football star and his grandmother are the same height and weight, they will have the same BMI, even though he is lean and very muscular and she is morbidly obese.

Also, the BMI statistics are based on white Americans, even though African Americans have very different builds.

Jay Wiener