BMI chart

I now fall in the 'underweight' category. However, I understand this is a generic scale for Europeans. For men of South East Asian origin - who tend to dangerously collect body fat around the belly area versus dispersing it around the body - our BMI recommendations should be a shade lower.

That said, I do feel like little more than a head on a stick these days. Also, there are but a few millimetres separating the upper edge of my hip bone from the external environment, and my grandmother has hailed much abuse at me for shriveling up since her last visit.

Raising my weight won't be an issue but I do believe it is significantly easier to lose weight for most people than it is to try to raise one's weight in a healthy manner. If you are coming from the overweight side, it's just a matter of reducing calories. However, if you are coming from the underweight side of the ledger, doing the opposite will likely just lead to an increase in body fat, which is not what you want. Thus, the ratio of exercise or diet for people looking to gain healthy weight must surely be significantly higher for people looking to add mass. Oh, and of course you also have to adjust your diet by a higher percentage than you would otherwise because weight training exercise burns around as many calories as cardio work, and you'll need to eat this amount just to get back to break-even.

To provide a bit of perspective on BMI and mortality, take a look at this chart from a Swiss Re report on obesity:

While you can ask many questions about the date behind this bigger picture investigations, one of the reminders this chart clearly makes is that being underweight can be highly detrimental to one's health. Just look at how mortality lines swing sharply higher as soon as you move into the underweight zone.