Importance of forests
Forests are not ‘fringe elements’ or ‘extra fittings’. Nor are they lifeless areas. Parks, estates, grazing lands, deemed forests, and forests are core elements in our natural protection against extreme natural events. The loss of green cover under the guise of infrastructure development is a step in the direction of self destruction (Page 1, “Objections overruled, Forest Bill goes to House unchanged” July 10).
P. David Balasingh,
Nagercoil, Tamil Nadu
The yuan and payments
Paul Krugmann wrote in the NYT recently that for all the big talk about China’s yuan getting big in world trade and threatening the U.S. dollar, the dollar’s share in world trade and needs has not dropped substantially in the last 20 years. Along with the currencies of its allies, the dollar literally dominates world trade and reserves. China has appeared on the horizon only recently. The role of the yuan in payments by India, Brazil, Russia and Argentina is just a ripple in world trade.
M. Balakrishnan,
Bengaluru
Office of the Governor
The piece (‘From the Archives’, July 10, 1973, “Governor’s post: T’Nadu plea for abolition”), on the issue of doing away with the office of the Governor, is, ironically, very relevant in today’s politics that are marked by acrimony. The government at the Centre has been doing its best to subvert the democratic process by using Governors as a political weapon. There must be checks and balances on the conduct of Governors. It is only then that cooperative federalism will flourish, as envisaged in the Constitution.
R. Sivakumar,
Chennai
It is ironic that even in 1973, one finds Tamil Nadu had advocated abolition of the Governor’s post.
It is unfortunate that Governors seem to be agents of the Centre and not functioning according to constitutional guidelines. It is in the interest of democracy to end this undesirable game of upmanship.
Mohammed Ikramulla,
Hyderabad
Measure the waist
The article, “Re-evaluating what BMI says about your health”, Science page), which was on the use of Body Mass Index (BMI) to assess health, makes interesting reading. While all the facts mentioned are true and BMI is indeed a poor index of one’s body fat, the article, unfortunately, does not describe what can be an alternative.
A simple waist measurement can give more information about one’s obesity, as an increase in the abdominal circumference invariably means an increase in body fat except in some situations such as pregnancy, a huge abdominal tumour or intra-abdominal fluid due to cirrhosis of the liver, etc. A waist circumference of more than 90 centimetres in males and more than 80 cm in females is considered evidence of abdominal obesity. A couple of other indices which are used are the waist-hip ratio where the waist is divided by the hip, and the waist-height ratio, where the waist is divided by the height.
Both these are also useful. However, this now means that the two measurements are needed and the chances of error when two measurements are taken are much more, particularly the waist-hip, because measuring the hip would mean undressing the individual, whereas a waist measurement can be still taken with light clothes on. The advantage of measuring a waist circumference over the BMI is that the BMI needs both a stadiometer to measure height as well as a weighing machine to measure weight and both these need to be standardised. Weighing scales can sometimes be inaccurate. The waist on the other hand requires only an inch- tape which is shown as a picture in the article, but it is not described in the article.
Studies over the last 20 years from our group and by others have shown that the BMI is a poor index of metabolic health when compared to waist. Clinics and hospitals should start measuring the person’s waist routinely as it can give much more information.
However, a word of caution. If the waist is not measured properly, it can also lead to gross errors. A simple way to measure waist would be at the level of the umbilicus. However, in very obese people, the umbilicus tends to shift down and the correct way to measure the waist is to take the midpoint between the inferior margin (lowest point) of the last rib and the crest of the ileum (top of the hip bone).
In summary, a simple waist measurement gives you much more reliable information about obesity than the BMI.
Dr. V. Mohan,
Chairman,
Dr. Mohan’s Diabetes Specialities Centre,
Chennai
