BMI (Body Mass Index): In today's time when our lives have to a large extent become fodder for other people's consumption and judgement, body image issues and eating disorders have unfortunately become a huge part of our reality.&nbsp;

As per the study by the Lancet medical journal done in collaboration with the World Health Organization (WHO) and released ahead of World Obesity Day (Mar&nbsp;4), more than one billion people across the world suffer from obesity. This conclusion was based on data measured on the BMI index.

<h2>What is obesity?&nbsp;</h2>

Many of us falsely believe anything that doesn't fit the societal norm is obese. We have got so used to comparing our bodies with others that searches like 'what is the ideal weight for someone of XYZ height' are common.&nbsp;

<img alt="Google search " data-entity-type="file" data-entity-uuid="dde3fc7f-8ce2-4bf5-9aba-14f97f541e4b" src="//cdn.wionews.com/sites/default/files/inline-images/New%20wion%20%286%29.jpg" />

The internet's answer to such a question? The BMI index, which lumps you into brackets like underweight, healthy, overweight, and obese. But, how valid is the BMI index? Is it an apt scale for measuring obesity?&nbsp;

To answer these questions&nbsp;and more, WION connected with a senior dietitian with more than a decade's experience.

<h2>What is the BMI index?</h2>

The Body Mass Index (BMI) has long been used as a standard measure to categorise an individual's weight status.&nbsp;

It traces its origins back to between 1830 and 1850, when Adolphe Quetelet, a Belgian astronomer, mathematician, statistician, and sociologist, devised its basis. Then called the Quetelet Index, it was a means of discovering the socially ideal human person. Now, it is used to devise the ideal weight.

However, its validity and effectiveness have been a subject of debate among health professionals and researchers.

While BMI provides a simple and quick way to assess weight-related health risks, it comes with many limitations.

One major criticism of BMI is its reliance solely on weight and height, without considering other important factors, such as muscle mass, bone density, and distribution of fat.&nbsp;

This means that individuals with a high muscle mass, such as athletes, may be classified as overweight or obese, despite being in excellent health. Similarly, older adults and those with different ethnic backgrounds may not be accurately assessed by BMI due to variations in body composition.

As per Veena V, Chief Clinical Dietitian at Aster Whitefield Hospital, even those with the appropriate BMI measurement can have health problems like fatty liver.&nbsp;

She notes that BMI can also vary between different ethnicities. Comparing the diet in India and abroad, she said that in India, several people consume food that can lead to added fat around the waist. This is often considered unhealthy, but that isn't always the case.

<h2>The psychological effects</h2>

BMI fails to account for the psychological effects it can have on individuals. Being told that you are overweight or obese based on a numerical value can lead to feelings of shame, guilt, and low self-esteem. This can be particularly harmful to vulnerable populations, such as teenagers, who are already facing immense pressure to conform to societal beauty standards.

"Sometimes, if people focus too much on their BMI, they might start doing unhealthy things like extreme dieting or exercising too much. This can hurt their bodies and their&nbsp;minds,"&nbsp;said&nbsp;Psychotherapist Ekta Khurana.

"We should recognise that health is multifaceted, and weight alone doesn’t define well-being," she adds.

Despite its limitations, BMI can still be a useful screening tool, but only when used in conjunction with other assessments, such as waist circumference and body fat percentage. However, its validity and effectiveness as a standalone measure are questionable. Health professionals and individuals alike should be aware of its limitations and use it as part of a comprehensive assessment of health status and not as a final verdict on how healthy or unhealthy one is.&nbsp;

BMI (Body Mass Index): In today's time when our lives have to a large extent become fodder for other people's consumption and judgement, body image issues and eating disorders have unfortunately become a huge part of our reality.

BMI (Body Mass Index): In today's time when our lives have to a large extent become fodder for other people's consumption and judgement, body image issues and eating disorders have unfortunately become a huge part of our reality. As per the study by the Lancet medical journal done in collaboration with the World Health Organization (WHO) and released ahead of World Obesity Day (Mar 4), more than one billion people across the world suffer from obesity. This conclusion was based on data measured on the BMI index. What is obesity? Many of us falsely believe anything that doesn't fit the societal norm is obese. We have got so used to comparing our bodies with others that searches like 'what is the ideal weight for someone of XYZ height' are common. The internet's answer to such a question? The BMI index, which lumps you into brackets like underweight, healthy, overweight, and obese. But, how valid is the BMI index? Is it an apt scale for measuring obesity? To answer these questions and more, WION connected with a senior dietitian with more than a decade's experience. What is the BMI index? The Body Mass Index (BMI) has long been used as a standard measure to categorise an individual's weight status. It traces its origins back to between 1830 and 1850, when Adolphe Quetelet, a Belgian astronomer, mathematician, statistician, and sociologist, devised its basis. Then called the Quetelet Index, it was a means of discovering the socially ideal human person. Now, it is used to devise the ideal weight. However, its validity and effectiveness have been a subject of debate among health professionals and researchers. While BMI provides a simple and quick way to assess weight-related health risks, it comes with many limitations. One major criticism of BMI is its reliance solely on weight and height, without considering other important factors, such as muscle mass, bone density, and distribution of fat. This means that individuals with a high muscle mass, such as athletes, may be classified as overweight or obese, despite being in excellent health. Similarly, older adults and those with different ethnic backgrounds may not be accurately assessed by BMI due to variations in body composition. As per Veena V, Chief Clinical Dietitian at Aster Whitefield Hospital, even those with the appropriate BMI measurement can have health problems like fatty liver. She notes that BMI can also vary between different ethnicities. Comparing the diet in India and abroad, she said that in India, several people consume food that can lead to added fat around the waist. This is often considered unhealthy, but that isn't always the case. The psychological effects BMI fails to account for the psychological effects it can have on individuals. Being told that you are overweight or obese based on a numerical value can lead to feelings of shame, guilt, and low self-esteem. This can be particularly harmful to vulnerable populations, such as teenagers, who are already facing immense pressure to conform to societal beauty standards. "Sometimes, if people focus too much on their BMI, they might start doing unhealthy things like extreme dieting or exercising too much. This can hurt their bodies and their minds," said Psychotherapist Ekta Khurana. "We should recognise that health is multifaceted, and weight alone doesn’t define well-being," she adds. Despite its limitations, BMI can still be a useful screening tool, but only when used in conjunction with other assessments, such as waist circumference and body fat percentage. However, its validity and effectiveness as a standalone measure are questionable. Health professionals and individuals alike should be aware of its limitations and use it as part of a comprehensive assessment of health status and not as a final verdict on how healthy or unhealthy one is.

Body image battles: Break free of BMI stereotypes. Your weight isn't the whole story

Former Managing Director of Google and Twitter Parminder Singh recently took to X and shared a very interesting observation regarding ethnicity.&nbsp;

In his post shared on April 14, Singh emphasised how Malaysians often refer to Sikhs as Bengalis. He further explained that not just Sikhs, but everybody from North India is perceived as Bengalis in the country.&nbsp;

<h2>Singh decodes 'historicity' behind the 'ethnic' confusion</h2>

Singh, clarifying the confusion, said that the people in Malaysia tend to refer to everyone from North India as Bengalis. He said that he was made aware of this by fellow Malay Indians in a meditation retreat in Malaysia.

Also Read:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/india-news/malaysia-opens-visa-free-doors-for-indian-chinese-travelers-from-dec-1-663157">Malaysia opens visa-free entry for Indian, Chinese travelers from Dec 1</a>

Explaining the historical reason behind the confusion, Singh said, ''British India had three sea ports - Calcutta, Madras, and Bombay. British Malaya was served by ships from Calcutta and Madras. Most North Indians used the Calcutta port, the majority of whom were Sikhs recruited for army, police, and security jobs. To the Malay people, everyone who didn't come from Madras, essentially everyone from North India, was a Bengali."

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In Malaysia, Sikhs are often referred to as Bengalis! I recently learned this fact and the fascinating history behind it. British India had three sea ports - Calcutta, Madras, and Bombay. British Malaya was served by ships from Calcutta and Madras. Most North Indians used the…
— Parminder Singh (@parrysingh) <a href="https://twitter.com/parrysingh/status/1779353391040483614?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 14, 2024</a></blockquote>
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''In a lighter vein, some of them insisted on calling me Parry Dada (the Bengali term for elder brother). I suppose this is the opposite of how many of us North Indians tend to label everyone from the South as 'Madrasis'," he explained.

<h1>Netizens share their own anecdotes&nbsp;</h1>

Netizens appreciated the observation shared by Singh and wrote their own stories of how their ethnicities and cultures were misunderstood by people of other nationalities.&nbsp;

"That is so amusing. Reminds me of what a salwar-kurta/kameez is called in Odisha. It is called, believe it or not, Punjabi!!! Imagine telling the shopkeeper there 'Show me colourful Punjabis'," said one user.

Watch:&nbsp;Malaysia urges Meta and TikTok to tackle harmful content on platforms

<div class="videoWrapper trancodeVideo"><iframe allowfullscreen="" autoplay="1" class="includeVideo" frameborder="0" height="350" src="https://www.wionews.com/videos/malaysia-urges-meta-and-tiktok-to-tackle-harmful-content-on-platforms-709634/embed" style="width:100%;max-width:560px;" width="560"></iframe></div>

''Yea all over the world we are undersrood differently as per their own perception, based on lack of knowledge but in reality we the Sikhs carry values of of each one of those. We are like a VIBGYOR of the world communities and hence all names are acceptable," wrote another netizen. (sic)

"This is why colloquially many south Asians used to refer to every white person as “Angrez” (Angrez means English, not French/German/Scottish etc). And it's the reason the name for Sind/Hind/Indus became a mistaken label for all South Asians - Panjab Sind Gujarat Maratha," said a third user.

''Interesting. In East Africa, Sikhs are called Kala Singha. An earliest immigrant Sikh was one Kala Singh and Indians with beard and similar turban like Kala Singh got the same name tag," wrote another netizen.&nbsp;

Former Managing Director of Google and Twitter Parminder Singh recently took to X and shared a very interesting observation regarding ethnicity. In his post shared on April 14, Singh emphasised how Malaysians often refer to Sikhs as Bengalis.

Former Managing Director of Google and Twitter Parminder Singh recently took to X and shared a very interesting observation regarding ethnicity. In his post shared on April 14, Singh emphasised how Malaysians often refer to Sikhs as Bengalis. He further explained that not just Sikhs, but everybody from North India is perceived as Bengalis in the country. Singh decodes 'historicity' behind the 'ethnic' confusion Singh, clarifying the confusion, said that the people in Malaysia tend to refer to everyone from North India as Bengalis. He said that he was made aware of this by fellow Malay Indians in a meditation retreat in Malaysia. Also Read: Malaysia opens visa-free entry for Indian, Chinese travelers from Dec 1 Explaining the historical reason behind the confusion, Singh said, ''British India had three sea ports - Calcutta, Madras, and Bombay. British Malaya was served by ships from Calcutta and Madras. Most North Indians used the Calcutta port, the majority of whom were Sikhs recruited for army, police, and security jobs. To the Malay people, everyone who didn't come from Madras, essentially everyone from North India, was a Bengali." In Malaysia, Sikhs are often referred to as Bengalis! I recently learned this fact and the fascinating history behind it. British India had three sea ports - Calcutta, Madras, and Bombay. British Malaya was served by ships from Calcutta and Madras. Most North Indians used the… — Parminder Singh (@parrysingh) April 14, 2024 × ''In a lighter vein, some of them insisted on calling me Parry Dada (the Bengali term for elder brother). I suppose this is the opposite of how many of us North Indians tend to label everyone from the South as 'Madrasis'," he explained. Netizens share their own anecdotes Netizens appreciated the observation shared by Singh and wrote their own stories of how their ethnicities and cultures were misunderstood by people of other nationalities. "That is so amusing. Reminds me of what a salwar-kurta/kameez is called in Odisha. It is called, believe it or not, Punjabi!!! Imagine telling the shopkeeper there 'Show me colourful Punjabis'," said one user. Watch: Malaysia urges Meta and TikTok to tackle harmful content on platforms ''Yea all over the world we are undersrood differently as per their own perception, based on lack of knowledge but in reality we the Sikhs carry values of of each one of those. We are like a VIBGYOR of the world communities and hence all names are acceptable," wrote another netizen. (sic) "This is why colloquially many south Asians used to refer to every white person as “Angrez” (Angrez means English, not French/German/Scottish etc). And it's the reason the name for Sind/Hind/Indus became a mistaken label for all South Asians - Panjab Sind Gujarat Maratha," said a third user. ''Interesting. In East Africa, Sikhs are called Kala Singha. An earliest immigrant Sikh was one Kala Singh and Indians with beard and similar turban like Kala Singh got the same name tag," wrote another netizen.

North Indians are mistaken for Bengalis in THIS country. The simple reasoning dates back to British rule

MacKenzie Scott stepped out of the long shadow of her former husband, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, by handing out billions of dollars in grants over the past two years to charities, community colleges, food banks and progressive nonprofits led by people of colour.

Advising her was a team of consultants at a firm that is hardly known outside philanthropic circles but highly influential within them: The Bridgespan Group.

Spun out of the consulting firm Bain &amp; Company as a nonprofit, Bridgespan is one of a host of groups that arose in the early 2000s as a new wave of giving led by tech billionaires was beginning to crest. Two decades later, the consultants working behind the scenes are more important than ever.

Scott pulled back the curtain a bit in June — when among the 286 groups receiving more than $2.7 billion in donations were a host of organizations that are basically the plumbing and wiring of the nonprofit world. Among them were the Center for Effective Philanthropy, Charity Navigator and Bridgespan itself, which said it would use its gift mainly to pursue research meant to benefit the sector as a whole.

“We work with the nonprofits on classic kinds of strategic issues, getting clarity on what they’re trying to do, putting their resources to work,” said Imtiyaz Hussein, who goes by Taz and is a Bridgespan partner who leads the group’s nonprofit advising practice. “I frame the heart of what we try to do as providing decision-making support for organizations.”

Proponents say the advisers make the field more effective. Critics question whether consultants, even at nonprofits with good intentions, are the right solution for the charitable sector.

“The tool kit of the consulting business is based on crunching massive amounts of quantitative data and analyzing it. What it’s bad at understanding is human life,” said Anand Giridharadas, author of “Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World” and who early in his career worked for the consultant McKinsey &amp; Company. “I think these folks, whether they’re well-meaning or not, find it hard to leave their vocation and worldview and basic frameworks at some kind of coat check.”

Bridgespan may not be a household name, but its reach in philanthropic circles is significant. The group advises the biggest names in the field: the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Ford Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation on the philanthropy side, and the YMCA of the USA, the Salvation Army and even the Sesame Workshop on the nonprofit side.

And for donors looking to outsource overhead while still giving responsibly, consultants fill the gap between Jack Dorsey’s spreadsheet of gifts and a full-blown foundation with offices on Fifth Avenue.

“Bridgespan occupies a unique perch in the landscape of professional-services organizations serving foundations and high-net-worth families,” said Darren Walker, president of the Ford Foundation. Walker, who has worked with Bridgespan since he was with the Abyssinian Development Corporation two decades ago, said no firm had been more influential in the past 20 years.

When a group of billionaires and scholars gathered last year to brainstorm reforms for the charitable sector, they met at Bridgespan’s offices in New York. When the Open Society Foundations, by most measures the second-biggest foundation in the United States after Gates, recently began a significant restructuring, it brought in Bridgespan.

And, of course, there is Scott, who shook up the world of philanthropy with donations of more than $8 billion in 11 months.

But some philanthropy experts say relying on consultants can skew which groups get the most funding. “Consultants at places like Bridgespan are setting the menu of what philanthropists can and should do,” said Megan Tompkins-Stange, an assistant professor of public policy and scholar of philanthropy at the University of Michigan. “The organizations that are stamped with the managerial brand are more likely to get funding.”

Bridgespan was started in 2000 by three men with ties to the for-profit management consultant Bain &amp; Company, including Bain’s then-worldwide managing partner Thomas Tierney. The founders received $1.3 million from the consulting firm and $5.5 million from a group of foundations to see if a dedicated nonprofit could do a better job than for-profit consultants dabbling in pro bono work.

Bridgespan got its start during an era of “venture philanthropy” and “philanthrocapitalism.” In essence, the billionaires knew best and they were going to bring their vaunted analytic practices to the world of nonprofits. A whole crop of groups came up at around the same time, Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, the Center for Effective Philanthropy and the consultants FSG among them. (All received funding from Scott in her last round of giving.)

Bridgespan itself received a gift from Scott. Bridgespan’s latest tax filing for the year 2020 showed contributions and grants leaping to $74.7 million from $12.5 million the year before, nearly doubling the group’s total assets as of the end of last year. Bridgespan said the increase reflected a five-year capital campaign with multiple donors and not just Scott’s grant.

Giving away money used to be approached as a distinct enterprise from making money. The strategies, language and reams of analytics do not always translate to the nonprofit world, where “return on investment” could be harder to quantify.

“We were getting into bidding wars. ‘I can serve 500 kids for a million dollars.’ ‘I can serve 500 kids for $400,000,’ ” said Geoffrey Canada, president of Harlem Children’s Zone and one of Bridgespan’s first clients. He said he found his initial encounter with the group “predictably demeaning — they come in, lay out charts, don’t give you the chance to answer back.”

What was different from other firms his nonprofit worked with, he said, was that Bridgespan took his “brutally honest” feedback to heart. In turn, they persuaded him to abandon the bidding wars and ask for more money, trusting the donors to respect his candour.

Attitudes toward billionaire philanthropy shifted after the Great Recession, with populists on the left and right more suspicious of the ultrawealthy. Yet, management consulting for philanthropists and nonprofits continued to thrive. That is partly because the pie keeps growing.

From 2000 to 2018, assets held by private foundations more than doubled, according to the research group Candid, to $950 billion from $421 billion. Total giving tripled over the same period, the most recent for which complete data is available, rising to $72 billion from $23 billion, according to Candid, which also received a grant from Scott.

Instead of establishing big foundations, many of the richest Americans now want to use limited-liability companies, such as Laurene Powell-Jobs, and donor-advised funds, which Scott has used for some of her gifts.

“Bridgespan seems exceptionally able and well-disposed to take advantage of the shift from big family foundations to LLCs that don’t want staff but are still giving away a huge sum of money,” said Rob Reich, co-director of the Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society at Stanford University.

Groups such as Bridgespan can also step into the gap and serve as outsourced staff for new foundations finding their footing.

In March, the recently formed Asian American Foundation had just five full-time employees. After the killing of eight people at Atlanta-area spas, six of Asian descent, the group was inundated with pledges and commitments, including millions more from prominent board members including Joseph Tsai, owner of the Brooklyn Nets, and a further $1 billion committed to their cause by foundations, corporations and individuals in an eight-week period.

Bridgespan's Hussein served as an informal adviser, joining calls with board members.

The foundation brought on a team from Bridgespan full time over the summer. “My ask of them was understanding what is happening in the field and what are things we should be paying attention to. Where were the gaps?” said foundation president Sonal Shah. The Bridgespan team provided a thorough analysis of Asian American and Pacific Islander organizations in the United States.

“I think it was over a four-week period, which is not a small thing to do in a month,” Shah said.

Shah said she appreciated the fact that the team from Bridgespan was staffed fully with people of Asian descent. Hussein said that was intentional. He drew from Bridgespan’s internal affinity group, people with “firsthand experience of what it means to be othered, what it means to have the model minority myth,” Hussein said.

That was not the case in the group’s early days, said Walker, of the Ford Foundation.

“When I first met Bridgespan, it was primarily white men at the top, and that’s not a surprise given their origin,” Walker said. “I had a Zoom call with the Bridgespan team on a matter last spring, and a majority of the people on the little Hollywood Squares on the Zoom were people of colour and women.”

Bridgespan’s self-reported diversity figures show two-thirds of the group’s staff are women. White people make up less than half of the overall staff, as well as less than half of those in leadership positions.

Both Walker and Jeff Bradach, one of Bridgespan’s founders, used the word “journey” to describe the group’s embrace of diversity and inclusion as central tenets of the work. Bradach, who was managing partner until October, when he stepped down from the top post, stressed in an interview that this was still a work in progress and that Bridgespan had made mistakes in the past.

For instance, one of Bridgespan’s big pushes was for donors to make “big bets” rather than spreading the money around. But that standard tends to favour big institutions. “If in your criteria, you say, ‘We only fund people that do random control trials,’ if you have these barriers to capital on general operating support, then a whole bunch of organizations led by people of colour have actually never been given the money to do that,” Bradach said.

Scott has made it a priority to give to such previously underfunded groups. But she has no website or headquarters or way to apply for grants, leaving groups scrambling for a way to get on her radar. People in the field noticed, for instance, that Bridgespan has advised the YMCA and Scott gave grants to YMCA’s across the country last year.

While avoiding directly discussing Scott’s giving per company policy, Bradach rejected the notion that nonprofits could work with Bridgespan as a way of getting the attention of the big donors they advise. Bradach said that just 5% of the nonprofits that Bridgespan’s philanthropic clients gave to were also Bridgespan clients.

In that 5% of cases, Bridgespan policy is to tell the donor that it also represents the nonprofit. The notion among nonprofits that they could cosy up to Bridgespan and then receive huge sums from Scott is wrong, Bradach said, and also betrays a misunderstanding of how much sway Bridgespan has over the donors it helps. “It’s not,” he said, “a black box that they’re kind of scratching their head going, ‘I can’t wait to see what comes.’”

MacKenzie Scott stepped out of the long shadow of her former husband, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, by handing out billions of dollars in grants over the past two years to charities, community colleges, food banks and progressive nonprofits led by people of colour.

MacKenzie Scott stepped out of the long shadow of her former husband, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, by handing out billions of dollars in grants over the past two years to charities, community colleges, food banks and progressive nonprofits led by people of colour. Advising her was a team of consultants at a firm that is hardly known outside philanthropic circles but highly influential within them: The Bridgespan Group. Spun out of the consulting firm Bain & Company as a nonprofit, Bridgespan is one of a host of groups that arose in the early 2000s as a new wave of giving led by tech billionaires was beginning to crest. Two decades later, the consultants working behind the scenes are more important than ever. Scott pulled back the curtain a bit in June — when among the 286 groups receiving more than $2.7 billion in donations were a host of organizations that are basically the plumbing and wiring of the nonprofit world. Among them were the Center for Effective Philanthropy, Charity Navigator and Bridgespan itself, which said it would use its gift mainly to pursue research meant to benefit the sector as a whole. “We work with the nonprofits on classic kinds of strategic issues, getting clarity on what they’re trying to do, putting their resources to work,” said Imtiyaz Hussein, who goes by Taz and is a Bridgespan partner who leads the group’s nonprofit advising practice. “I frame the heart of what we try to do as providing decision-making support for organizations.” Proponents say the advisers make the field more effective. Critics question whether consultants, even at nonprofits with good intentions, are the right solution for the charitable sector. “The tool kit of the consulting business is based on crunching massive amounts of quantitative data and analyzing it. What it’s bad at understanding is human life,” said Anand Giridharadas, author of “Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World” and who early in his career worked for the consultant McKinsey & Company. “I think these folks, whether they’re well-meaning or not, find it hard to leave their vocation and worldview and basic frameworks at some kind of coat check.” Bridgespan may not be a household name, but its reach in philanthropic circles is significant. The group advises the biggest names in the field: the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Ford Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation on the philanthropy side, and the YMCA of the USA, the Salvation Army and even the Sesame Workshop on the nonprofit side. And for donors looking to outsource overhead while still giving responsibly, consultants fill the gap between Jack Dorsey’s spreadsheet of gifts and a full-blown foundation with offices on Fifth Avenue. “Bridgespan occupies a unique perch in the landscape of professional-services organizations serving foundations and high-net-worth families,” said Darren Walker, president of the Ford Foundation. Walker, who has worked with Bridgespan since he was with the Abyssinian Development Corporation two decades ago, said no firm had been more influential in the past 20 years. When a group of billionaires and scholars gathered last year to brainstorm reforms for the charitable sector, they met at Bridgespan’s offices in New York. When the Open Society Foundations, by most measures the second-biggest foundation in the United States after Gates, recently began a significant restructuring, it brought in Bridgespan. And, of course, there is Scott, who shook up the world of philanthropy with donations of more than $8 billion in 11 months. But some philanthropy experts say relying on consultants can skew which groups get the most funding. “Consultants at places like Bridgespan are setting the menu of what philanthropists can and should do,” said Megan Tompkins-Stange, an assistant professor of public policy and scholar of philanthropy at the University of Michigan. “The organizations that are stamped with the managerial brand are more likely to get funding.” Bridgespan was started in 2000 by three men with ties to the for-profit management consultant Bain & Company, including Bain’s then-worldwide managing partner Thomas Tierney. The founders received $1.3 million from the consulting firm and $5.5 million from a group of foundations to see if a dedicated nonprofit could do a better job than for-profit consultants dabbling in pro bono work. Bridgespan got its start during an era of “venture philanthropy” and “philanthrocapitalism.” In essence, the billionaires knew best and they were going to bring their vaunted analytic practices to the world of nonprofits. A whole crop of groups came up at around the same time, Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, the Center for Effective Philanthropy and the consultants FSG among them. (All received funding from Scott in her last round of giving.) Bridgespan itself received a gift from Scott. Bridgespan’s latest tax filing for the year 2020 showed contributions and grants leaping to $74.7 million from $12.5 million the year before, nearly doubling the group’s total assets as of the end of last year. Bridgespan said the increase reflected a five-year capital campaign with multiple donors and not just Scott’s grant. Giving away money used to be approached as a distinct enterprise from making money. The strategies, language and reams of analytics do not always translate to the nonprofit world, where “return on investment” could be harder to quantify. “We were getting into bidding wars. ‘I can serve 500 kids for a million dollars.’ ‘I can serve 500 kids for $400,000,’ ” said Geoffrey Canada, president of Harlem Children’s Zone and one of Bridgespan’s first clients. He said he found his initial encounter with the group “predictably demeaning — they come in, lay out charts, don’t give you the chance to answer back.” What was different from other firms his nonprofit worked with, he said, was that Bridgespan took his “brutally honest” feedback to heart. In turn, they persuaded him to abandon the bidding wars and ask for more money, trusting the donors to respect his candour. Attitudes toward billionaire philanthropy shifted after the Great Recession, with populists on the left and right more suspicious of the ultrawealthy. Yet, management consulting for philanthropists and nonprofits continued to thrive. That is partly because the pie keeps growing. From 2000 to 2018, assets held by private foundations more than doubled, according to the research group Candid, to $950 billion from $421 billion. Total giving tripled over the same period, the most recent for which complete data is available, rising to $72 billion from $23 billion, according to Candid, which also received a grant from Scott. Instead of establishing big foundations, many of the richest Americans now want to use limited-liability companies, such as Laurene Powell-Jobs, and donor-advised funds, which Scott has used for some of her gifts. “Bridgespan seems exceptionally able and well-disposed to take advantage of the shift from big family foundations to LLCs that don’t want staff but are still giving away a huge sum of money,” said Rob Reich, co-director of the Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society at Stanford University. Groups such as Bridgespan can also step into the gap and serve as outsourced staff for new foundations finding their footing. In March, the recently formed Asian American Foundation had just five full-time employees. After the killing of eight people at Atlanta-area spas, six of Asian descent, the group was inundated with pledges and commitments, including millions more from prominent board members including Joseph Tsai, owner of the Brooklyn Nets, and a further $1 billion committed to their cause by foundations, corporations and individuals in an eight-week period. Bridgespan's Hussein served as an informal adviser, joining calls with board members. The foundation brought on a team from Bridgespan full time over the summer. “My ask of them was understanding what is happening in the field and what are things we should be paying attention to. Where were the gaps?” said foundation president Sonal Shah. The Bridgespan team provided a thorough analysis of Asian American and Pacific Islander organizations in the United States. “I think it was over a four-week period, which is not a small thing to do in a month,” Shah said. Shah said she appreciated the fact that the team from Bridgespan was staffed fully with people of Asian descent. Hussein said that was intentional. He drew from Bridgespan’s internal affinity group, people with “firsthand experience of what it means to be othered, what it means to have the model minority myth,” Hussein said. That was not the case in the group’s early days, said Walker, of the Ford Foundation. “When I first met Bridgespan, it was primarily white men at the top, and that’s not a surprise given their origin,” Walker said. “I had a Zoom call with the Bridgespan team on a matter last spring, and a majority of the people on the little Hollywood Squares on the Zoom were people of colour and women.” Bridgespan’s self-reported diversity figures show two-thirds of the group’s staff are women. White people make up less than half of the overall staff, as well as less than half of those in leadership positions. Both Walker and Jeff Bradach, one of Bridgespan’s founders, used the word “journey” to describe the group’s embrace of diversity and inclusion as central tenets of the work. Bradach, who was managing partner until October, when he stepped down from the top post, stressed in an interview that this was still a work in progress and that Bridgespan had made mistakes in the past. For instance, one of Bridgespan’s big pushes was for donors to make “big bets” rather than spreading the money around. But that standard tends to favour big institutions. “If in your criteria, you say, ‘We only fund people that do random control trials,’ if you have these barriers to capital on general operating support, then a whole bunch of organizations led by people of colour have actually never been given the money to do that,” Bradach said. Scott has made it a priority to give to such previously underfunded groups. But she has no website or headquarters or way to apply for grants, leaving groups scrambling for a way to get on her radar. People in the field noticed, for instance, that Bridgespan has advised the YMCA and Scott gave grants to YMCA’s across the country last year. While avoiding directly discussing Scott’s giving per company policy, Bradach rejected the notion that nonprofits could work with Bridgespan as a way of getting the attention of the big donors they advise. Bradach said that just 5% of the nonprofits that Bridgespan’s philanthropic clients gave to were also Bridgespan clients. In that 5% of cases, Bridgespan policy is to tell the donor that it also represents the nonprofit. The notion among nonprofits that they could cosy up to Bridgespan and then receive huge sums from Scott is wrong, Bradach said, and also betrays a misunderstanding of how much sway Bridgespan has over the donors it helps. “It’s not,” he said, “a black box that they’re kind of scratching their head going, ‘I can’t wait to see what comes.’”

The consulting firm that billionaires turn to when they give away money

American writer and civil rights activist Shaun King has said that all images of Jesus are depicted as a "white European" and urged people that it should be torn down as it is a form of "white supremacy".

The co-founder of Real Justice PAC is known to promote his views and social justice by using social media and has spoken for the 'Black Lives Matter' movement.&nbsp;

King used the social media platform of Twitter to make his remarks against statues of Jesus. Statues and historical monuments have been a target and are being brought down or vandalized during the Black Lives Matter protests that were sparked after George Floyd's death while in Police custody in Minneapolis.&nbsp;

He took to Twitter and wrote: “Yes I think the statues of the white European they claim is Jesus should also come down. They are a form of white supremacy. Always have been,” King tweeted. “In the Bible, when the family of Jesus wanted to hide and blend in, guess where they went? EGYPT! Not Demark. Tear them down.”

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Yes, I think the statues of the white European they claim is Jesus should also come down. 
 
They are a form of white supremacy. 
 
Always have been. 
 
In the Bible, when the family of Jesus wanted to hide, and blend in, guess where they went? 
 
EGYPT! 
 
Not Denmark. 
 
Tear them down.
— Shaun King (@shaunking) <a href="https://twitter.com/shaunking/status/1275106946916499456?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 22, 2020</a></blockquote>
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In his next post, Shaun King went on to call "white Jesus is a lie" and a "tool of white supremacy" saying that white people used the religion to as a “tool of oppression. He added that white people would never have accepted a religion “from a Brown man.”

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Yes. 
 
All murals and stained glass windows of white Jesus, and his European mother, and their white friends should also come down. 
 
They are a gross form white supremacy. 
 
Created as tools of oppression. 
Racist propaganda. 
 
They should all come down.
— Shaun King (@shaunking) <a href="https://twitter.com/shaunking/status/1275113067555303424?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 22, 2020</a></blockquote>
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He supported that all imagery including “murals and stained glass windows of white Jesus, and his European mother, and their white friends.”

Netizens had a mixed reaction, while some agreed with King's views, others pointed out that other communities have depicted Jesus that resembled the local community. For example, Ethiopia's Black Jesus and Asia Jesus in South East Asia.

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There are a number of prominent ‘Black Christs’. This one’s in the Metropolitan Cathedral in Mexico City. <a href="https://t.co/xwmdqQgpsT">pic.twitter.com/xwmdqQgpsT</a>
— Dominic Stafford Uglow (@Sellypaws) <a href="https://twitter.com/Sellypaws/status/1275130347395731456?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 22, 2020</a></blockquote>
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There is a long beautiful history of people depicting Jesus looking familiar to their place and culture. Jesus is not about race, and saying to tear down depictions that occur in a European-dominant context is as racist as removing them from any culture. <a href="https://t.co/C1wFSr1xXr">pic.twitter.com/C1wFSr1xXr</a>
— MrSubsidiarity (@MrSubsidiarity) <a href="https://twitter.com/MrSubsidiarity/status/1275158871275798528?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 22, 2020</a></blockquote>
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&nbsp;

American writer and civil rights activist Shaun King has said that all images of Jesus are depicted as a "white European" and urged people that it should be torn down as it is a form of "white supremacy".

American writer and civil rights activist Shaun King has said that all images of Jesus are depicted as a "white European" and urged people that it should be torn down as it is a form of "white supremacy". The co-founder of Real Justice PAC is known to promote his views and social justice by using social media and has spoken for the 'Black Lives Matter' movement. King used the social media platform of Twitter to make his remarks against statues of Jesus. Statues and historical monuments have been a target and are being brought down or vandalized during the Black Lives Matter protests that were sparked after George Floyd's death while in Police custody in Minneapolis. He took to Twitter and wrote: “Yes I think the statues of the white European they claim is Jesus should also come down. They are a form of white supremacy. Always have been,” King tweeted. “In the Bible, when the family of Jesus wanted to hide and blend in, guess where they went? EGYPT! Not Demark. Tear them down.” Yes, I think the statues of the white European they claim is Jesus should also come down. They are a form of white supremacy. Always have been. In the Bible, when the family of Jesus wanted to hide, and blend in, guess where they went? EGYPT! Not Denmark. Tear them down. — Shaun King (@shaunking) June 22, 2020 × In his next post, Shaun King went on to call "white Jesus is a lie" and a "tool of white supremacy" saying that white people used the religion to as a “tool of oppression. He added that white people would never have accepted a religion “from a Brown man.” Yes. All murals and stained glass windows of white Jesus, and his European mother, and their white friends should also come down. They are a gross form white supremacy. Created as tools of oppression. Racist propaganda. They should all come down. — Shaun King (@shaunking) June 22, 2020 × He supported that all imagery including “murals and stained glass windows of white Jesus, and his European mother, and their white friends.” Netizens had a mixed reaction, while some agreed with King's views, others pointed out that other communities have depicted Jesus that resembled the local community. For example, Ethiopia's Black Jesus and Asia Jesus in South East Asia. There are a number of prominent ‘Black Christs’. This one’s in the Metropolitan Cathedral in Mexico City. pic.twitter.com/xwmdqQgpsT — Dominic Stafford Uglow (@Sellypaws) June 22, 2020 × There is a long beautiful history of people depicting Jesus looking familiar to their place and culture. Jesus is not about race, and saying to tear down depictions that occur in a European-dominant context is as racist as removing them from any culture. pic.twitter.com/C1wFSr1xXr — MrSubsidiarity (@MrSubsidiarity) June 22, 2020 ×

American writer Shaun King calls statues of Jesus a tool of white supremacy; urges to be torn down

By:&nbsp;Miranda Davies-Tuck,&nbsp;Euan Wallace and&nbsp;Mary-Ann Davey

Australian women born in South Asia are more likely to have a stillbirth than other women, perhaps due to a rapidly ageing placenta that cannot support the pregnancy, new research suggests.

Our study looked at 700,000 births in Victoria over more than a decade. We found women born in India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan and Bangladesh had a 1.5 increased chance of a stillbirth at the end of their pregnancy (known as a &ldquo;term stillbirth&rdquo;) compared with women born in Australia or New Zealand.

That&rsquo;s equivalent to 2.6 term stillbirths per 1,000 births for South Asian-born women compared with 1.5 per 1,000 births to women born in Australia and New Zealand.

This is an increased risk equivalent to smoking, advanced maternal age or obesity.

The risk of a term stillbirth increased earlier in pregnancy and rose more rapidly in women born in South Asia. Alarmingly, for South Asian-born women, the rate of stillbirths at 39 weeks&rsquo; gestation was almost equivalent to the rate in Australian- and New Zealand-born women at 41 weeks (when the chance of stillbirth would be higher than earlier in the pregnancy).

While other research has found the mother&rsquo;s ethnicity places a role in the risk of a stillbirth, this has largely been put down to factors related to migration and social disadvantage. What our research shows is women born in South Asia and giving birth in Australia are at increased risk even when other factors are taken into account.

This means we need to rethink how we monitor and manage the pregnancies of women born in South Asia, including redefining when some babies reach &ldquo;term&rdquo;.

Why this matters

About seven per 1,000 babies born each year in Australia are stillborn &ndash; when the fetus dies at or after 20 weeks&rsquo; gestation &ndash; a figure that has remained unchanged over the past two decades.

Advanced maternal age, maternal infections, non-communicable diseases (like pre-existing diabetes and high blood pressure), obesity and a prolonged pregnancy are known risk factors for stillbirth globally.

Not only can a woman&rsquo;s country of birth now be added to the list, our research suggests how we look after pregnant women of South Asian origin needs to change.

In another recent study, we found that at 41 weeks&rsquo; pregnancy, South Asian-born women experienced rates of fetal distress at almost four times the rate of Australian- and New Zealand-born mothers.

Current national and international guidelines recommend additional fetal monitoring and/or induction of labour for pregnancies that progress beyond 41 weeks due to the increased risks of stillbirth.

But for South Asian-born women this may be too late.

Why might this be happening?

There is growing evidence to suggest a mother&rsquo;s ethnicity influences how fast her placenta ages as her pregnancy progresses.

For some women, they can go into spontaneous labour sooner. In our study, we found South Asian-born women went into labour a median one week earlier than Australian- or New Zealand-born women.

However, for others, an ageing placenta cannot meet the fetus&rsquo; increasing metabolic needs at term and beyond. And this increases the risk of stillbirth.

We still don&rsquo;t know which individual woman will go down which path.

Can we spot ageing placentas?

Biological markers &ndash; caps on the ends of chromosomes or &ldquo;telomeres&rdquo; &ndash; can help us assess ageing. Each time a cell replicates, the caps on the chromosomes get shorter. So shorter telomeres are a sign of more rapid cellular ageing.

And the length of telomeres in placentas from pregnancies ending in stillbirth is two times shorter than those from live births. In other words, the placental cells had aged faster.

Some researchers have also studied ethnic differences in placental telomere length.

In an American study, placental telomeres from pregnancies in black women were significantly shorter than from pregnancies in white women (the ethnic backgrounds of the women were not further defined in the study).

Whether telomeres are shorter in placentas from pregnancies in South Asian-born women is unknown.

Does this matter?

We don&rsquo;t know the cause for up to one-quarter of all stillbirths in Australia. So, better understanding the role of placental ageing may help.

Our research is also relevant as migration from South Asian countries to Australia is growing. Almost one-third of people migrating to Australia are from South Asian countries. So, the number of women giving birth in Australia from these countries is also increasing. Now, Indian mothers make up almost 4% (roughly 12,000) of all women giving birth in Australia a year.

<img alt="The Conversation" height="1" src="https://counter.theconversation.edu.au/content/80074/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" width="1" />It&rsquo;s time this was reflected in how we manage the pregnancies of women born in South Asia, particularly at the end of their pregnancies. We may have to more closely monitor their pregnancies and, if needed, recommend their labour be induced sooner than other women to reduce their chance of a stillbirth.

Miranda Davies-Tuck, Perinatal Epidemiologist and NHMRC Early Career Research Fellow, Hudson Institute; Euan Wallace, Chair Professor, Hudson Institute, and Mary-Ann Davey, Senior Research Fellow, Obstetrics &amp; Gynaecology, Monash University

This article was originally published on <a href="http://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a>. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/being-south-asian-is-as-great-a-risk-factor-for-stillbirth-as-smoking-80074">original article</a>.

Mothers' ethnicity plays an important role in the birth of a healthy child

By: Miranda Davies-Tuck, Euan Wallace and Mary-Ann Davey Australian women born in South Asia are more likely to have a stillbirth than other women, perhaps due to a rapidly ageing placenta that cannot support the pregnancy, new research suggests. Our study looked at 700,000 births in Victoria over more than a decade. We found women born in India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan and Bangladesh had a 1.5 increased chance of a stillbirth at the end of their pregnancy (known as a “term stillbirth”) compared with women born in Australia or New Zealand. That’s equivalent to 2.6 term stillbirths per 1,000 births for South Asian-born women compared with 1.5 per 1,000 births to women born in Australia and New Zealand. This is an increased risk equivalent to smoking, advanced maternal age or obesity. The risk of a term stillbirth increased earlier in pregnancy and rose more rapidly in women born in South Asia. Alarmingly, for South Asian-born women, the rate of stillbirths at 39 weeks’ gestation was almost equivalent to the rate in Australian- and New Zealand-born women at 41 weeks (when the chance of stillbirth would be higher than earlier in the pregnancy). While other research has found the mother’s ethnicity places a role in the risk of a stillbirth, this has largely been put down to factors related to migration and social disadvantage. What our research shows is women born in South Asia and giving birth in Australia are at increased risk even when other factors are taken into account. This means we need to rethink how we monitor and manage the pregnancies of women born in South Asia, including redefining when some babies reach “term”. Why this matters About seven per 1,000 babies born each year in Australia are stillborn – when the fetus dies at or after 20 weeks’ gestation – a figure that has remained unchanged over the past two decades. Advanced maternal age, maternal infections, non-communicable diseases (like pre-existing diabetes and high blood pressure), obesity and a prolonged pregnancy are known risk factors for stillbirth globally. Not only can a woman’s country of birth now be added to the list, our research suggests how we look after pregnant women of South Asian origin needs to change. In another recent study, we found that at 41 weeks’ pregnancy, South Asian-born women experienced rates of fetal distress at almost four times the rate of Australian- and New Zealand-born mothers. Current national and international guidelines recommend additional fetal monitoring and/or induction of labour for pregnancies that progress beyond 41 weeks due to the increased risks of stillbirth. But for South Asian-born women this may be too late. Why might this be happening? There is growing evidence to suggest a mother’s ethnicity influences how fast her placenta ages as her pregnancy progresses. For some women, they can go into spontaneous labour sooner. In our study, we found South Asian-born women went into labour a median one week earlier than Australian- or New Zealand-born women. However, for others, an ageing placenta cannot meet the fetus’ increasing metabolic needs at term and beyond. And this increases the risk of stillbirth. We still don’t know which individual woman will go down which path. Can we spot ageing placentas? Biological markers – caps on the ends of chromosomes or “telomeres” – can help us assess ageing. Each time a cell replicates, the caps on the chromosomes get shorter. So shorter telomeres are a sign of more rapid cellular ageing. And the length of telomeres in placentas from pregnancies ending in stillbirth is two times shorter than those from live births. In other words, the placental cells had aged faster. Some researchers have also studied ethnic differences in placental telomere length. In an American study, placental telomeres from pregnancies in black women were significantly shorter than from pregnancies in white women (the ethnic backgrounds of the women were not further defined in the study). Whether telomeres are shorter in placentas from pregnancies in South Asian-born women is unknown. Does this matter? We don’t know the cause for up to one-quarter of all stillbirths in Australia. So, better understanding the role of placental ageing may help. Our research is also relevant as migration from South Asian countries to Australia is growing. Almost one-third of people migrating to Australia are from South Asian countries. So, the number of women giving birth in Australia from these countries is also increasing. Now, Indian mothers make up almost 4% (roughly 12,000) of all women giving birth in Australia a year. It’s time this was reflected in how we manage the pregnancies of women born in South Asia, particularly at the end of their pregnancies. We may have to more closely monitor their pregnancies and, if needed, recommend their labour be induced sooner than other women to reduce their chance of a stillbirth. Miranda Davies-Tuck, Perinatal Epidemiologist and NHMRC Early Career Research Fellow, Hudson Institute; Euan Wallace, Chair Professor, Hudson Institute, and Mary-Ann Davey, Senior Research Fellow, Obstetrics & Gynaecology, Monash University This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

South Asian women are at a higher risk of giving birth to stillborn babies

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