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Weight

"Hey Suzy, My doctor told me that I am not overweight because I am within my body mass index. Funny though, he did say I should do more tummy exercises because I am fat in the middle."

It seems everyday I am asked whether a person is of normal weight for their size, or above or underweight. 

Medicine, for years, has tried to come up with measures of body fat with such systems as measuring fat in several sites with calipers, or with body mass indexes, waist size and more. 

I have the fastest and, I believe most accurate system of all. I call it, the eyeball technique. Everyone has it. You look and you see if you are overweight. 

Everybody knows if they are carrying more fat because they can easily see it. Patients come to me hoping I will come up with some measurement that tells me they are underweight even though they are clearly overweight. 

My eyeball technique does not lie. 

With inappropriate weight gain, both men and women will develop a bigger belly and most women develop bigger legs and hips. 

Women can get larger breasts, and sometimes men do too. All kidding aside, I believe a better overall measurement of health is by using simple cardiovascular fitness, rather than your weight. 

How far can you walk or jog? How often do you bike, jog or walk? Do you smoke, over-eat or under-eat? Is your diet balanced? Do you drink enough water? 

These are true measurements of fitness, and not appearance. So, next time you are at the beach, you too can estimate obesity using my eyeball technique to measure yourself and others. No scales needed! 

It does not, however, measure fitness.