Dear Dr. Roach: I'm an 80-year-old male who has spent most of my life at 6 feet, 2 inches tall and 185 pounds. At about age 70, my body started to compress to the point that I now get measured at 5 feet, 11 inches and sometimes a tad less. I currently weigh 212 pounds, which makes me overweight. Is my former height a nonfactor here? As a chart will tell you, being taller allows a person to have a higher weight. I'm trying to state my case that I'm not as overweight as the chart says.

— Anon.

Dear Anon.: The body mass index (BMI, which the chart was probably derived from) is a tool used to estimate body shape. Unfortunately it has also been used to estimate health, but it is a flawed measurement since it does not consider many important facts, such as a person's amount of muscle, their

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