[A] figure that the author quoted was males of 5'10" and a weight between 129-174 lbs having a higher "mortality risk" than the same height and a weight of 175-243lbs

A better title might have been, "BMI Is A Crude And Unreliable Predictor Of Fitness And Health Risk." As of this morning I am, as luck would have it, 5'10" and 178 pounds, putting me in the "overweight" category of BMI. The more sophisticated air displacement plethysmography places my body fat percentage at 13%, completely within the desirable range.

Obviously, health is more complicated than simply height and weight. Taking a crude proxy for being overweight, and than proving that the proxy doesn't correlate with ultimate outcome merely indicates that crude measurements can, indeed, be flawed. William Saletan critiques the article in more detain in Slate http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/human_natur... .

martybl