We are sending some very twisted messages to our children. We are teaching them that all that matters is how you look. As long as you look like some emaciated waif on the cover of a magazine who probably lives on cocaine and cigarettes, well that's fine. People can be active and eat healthy and still be on the heavy side. But we promote this Kate Moss ideal like it's healthy. If we want people to be healthy we should stop focusing on how they look and promote healthy eating and exercise. We should stop judging people by BMI (a worthless measure) and start judging ourselves on how healthy we are.
Are you talking about the subject at hand or are you talking about the media/Aus as a whole when you say "We"?

Of course people can be on the heavy side and still be healthy, but those aren't the people that are getting the surgery. And there is no way that you can tell me that someone who is classed as able to get the surgery is "healthy". No one is saying you either have to look like Kate Moss or be Obese.

As for BMI, it is not worthless. It's a screening tool used in conjunction with other tests to give you an IDEA of somebodies body composition. It is in no way totally acurate and it will overestimate body fat in someone who is very muscualar and underestimate body fat in older people who have lost muscle mass.

I don't believe that any Dr/fitness instructor etc uses BMI alone.

What we need to be teaching, and by that I mean showing by example, our children is how to eat a healthy, balanced diet and how to exercise and have fun. If you have a parent who drags themselves to the gym and moans about it then you're teaching that exercise is boring. If more familes get outside, go to the park, go on bikerides etc together then we could be solving all the problems in one go.