The Mathematical Formatting of Obesity in Public Health Discourse

Rising rates of obesity are of widespread public concern and are targeted by public health policy around the world. In this paper, we examine the origins of the most common definition of obesity, known as the Body Mass Index (BMI). We draw on Skovsmose's concept of formatting, combined with a historical examination of the origins of the BMI, to show how obesity is a form of realized abstraction. We discuss how mathematics therefore formats obesity, indicate some of the consequences of the particular way this occurs through the BMI, and suggest some possibilities for mathematics teaching arising from this work.