The value of the BMI for tracking the current epidemic of obesity is clearly illustrated in the study by Rodgers et al., which traced the change in the BMI for many subgroups of the US population from 1962 to the year 2000 [23]. (See Figure 1) They showed that the US epidemic of obesity began about 1975 in all age, sex and ethnic groups and continued over the next 25 years. This fact limits the plausible explanations for the current epidemic of obesity. Rodgers and colleagues believe that it is implausible that each age, sex and ethnic group, with massive differences in life experience and attitudes, had a simultaneous decline in willpower related to healthy nutrition or exercise, or that intrauterine exposures played a major causative role. Likewise, changes in genetic make-up are unlikely to have occurred over this short period and to have affected all age groups simultaneously. Similarly, they note that it is unlikely that any factor with a long induction period had a major role in the US epidemic. Rather, they believe that the epidemic must have been caused by factors that led to rapid population-wide changes such as changes in the food supply, and I tend to agree with their conclusion.

Beyond BMI by George A. Bray – Nutrients 2023, 15(10), 2254 – https://doi.org/10.3390/nu15102254

Agree.