What use is the BMI?

[...]it is perceived in the Western world as unattractive and for many individuals it is, therefore, the cause of much unhappiness. Whole-school and whole-community approaches to issues of diet and exercise are not easy, and even well funded intensive programmes have yielded only modest improvement. 33 Nevertheless, this approach is probably the best way of tackling the obesity epidemic. 34, 35 Rudolf's data show that it will be difficult to detect a meaningful reduction in BMI measures at the level of individual schools; indeed, a rise could easily occur by chance alone and unless staff are aware of this risk it could demoralise a school that was actually running a good programme.