Rebecca O’Neal didn’t believe she qualified for a Covid-19 vaccine. She had not realized that her turn had come. Last week, when she scrolled through the eligibility requirements for the state of New York, she noticed body mass index on the list.
Body mass index, or B.M.I., is technically a measure of obesity. The quantifier was drawn up in the 1930s by the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company to assess risk. Since a B.M.I. is a formula that does not consider several important factors like where the body fat is or if any vital organs are surrounded by fat, experts say to take the indicator with a grain of salt. But even so, a B.M.I. that indicates obesity has been a source of agitation for people who believe their doctors have used it to discriminate against them because of their weight.
calculated her B.M.I. (it’s essentially your weight compared to your height), found that she met this technical threshold for obesity, and booked a vaccine appointment for the same day. She received the first dose later that afternoon.
