BMI
Replies
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asflatasapancake wrote: »I'm 6'1", 198lbs and considered overweight.
I don't feel overweight.
and realistically we all know you are not..and it's 26.1..I had ot check sorry.
but you are one of those that it isn't accurate for due to it not being able to distinguish muscle mass with body fat.0 -
At 24% BF, BMI had me at substantially overweight. Again, because it's poo for someone three standard deviations from the mean in height. Which, admittedly, isn't very many people, but that doesn't help me when the insurance company starts complaining.
Depends on sex.DeguelloTex wrote: »
What's the cutoff for a healthy body fat percentage?
Guessing he means in comparison to going by body weight percentage.DeguelloTex wrote: »
BMI skews towards underestimating body fat percentage.
Usually below 25% is considered acceptable for a man, 32% for a woman. Though as it is harder to get an accurate number for, I think there is no where near the medical correlations and research done it.
Wikipedia has this table for body fat:
Description Women Men
Essential fat 10–13% 2–5%
Athletes 14–20% 6–13%
Fitness 21–24% 14–17%
Average 25–31% 18–24%
Obese 32%+ 25%+
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_fat_percentage
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DeguelloTex wrote: »
At 24% BF, BMI had me at substantially overweight. Again, because it's poo for someone three standard deviations from the mean in height. Which, admittedly, isn't very many people, but that doesn't help me when the insurance company starts complaining.
Depends on sex.DeguelloTex wrote: »
What's the cutoff for a healthy body fat percentage?
Guessing he means in comparison to going by body weight percentage.DeguelloTex wrote: »
BMI skews towards underestimating body fat percentage.
Usually below 25% is considered acceptable for a man, 32% for a woman. Though as it is harder to get an accurate number for, I think there is no where near the medical correlations and research done it.
Wikipedia has this table for body fat:
Description Women Men
Essential fat 10–13% 2–5%
Athletes 14–20% 6–13%
Fitness 21–24% 14–17%
Average 25–31% 18–24%
Obese 32%+ 25%+
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_fat_percentage
I guess at 5'7.5" I'd offer to switch heights with you if you have a way to do it.
There are all kinds of holes in that make it poor for an absolute personal standard, but the deviations cancel out when you need a quick measure for research studies and epidemiological data collection. Not to mention, you can measure it as accurately as a scale and tape measure allow, but honestly, body fat can be measured with absolute accuracy only one time.0 -
Oh, I'm not offering to switch, that's for sure.DeguelloTex wrote: »
At 24% BF, BMI had me at substantially overweight. Again, because it's poo for someone three standard deviations from the mean in height. Which, admittedly, isn't very many people, but that doesn't help me when the insurance company starts complaining.
Depends on sex.DeguelloTex wrote: »
What's the cutoff for a healthy body fat percentage?
Guessing he means in comparison to going by body weight percentage.DeguelloTex wrote: »
BMI skews towards underestimating body fat percentage.
Usually below 25% is considered acceptable for a man, 32% for a woman. Though as it is harder to get an accurate number for, I think there is no where near the medical correlations and research done it.
Wikipedia has this table for body fat:
Description Women Men
Essential fat 10–13% 2–5%
Athletes 14–20% 6–13%
Fitness 21–24% 14–17%
Average 25–31% 18–24%
Obese 32%+ 25%+
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_fat_percentage
I guess at 5'7.5" I'd offer to switch heights with you if you have a way to do it.
There are all kinds of holes in that make it poor for an absolute personal standard, but the deviations cancel out when you need a quick measure for research studies and epidemiological data collection. Not to mention, you can measure it as accurately as a scale and tape measure allow, but honestly, body fat can be measured with absolute accuracy only one time.
I think BMI is a reasonable first pass at the problem for the overwhelming majority of people. I just wish there were a way to get my insurance company to accept reasonable alternative criteria. The "tall BMI" or body fat percentage would be two candidates, imo.
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I don't like BMI simply because according to the doctor people in charge where I live, I need to be at 25% for a surgery. That means losing about 20kg -- and while I do know that I need to drop that weight anyway, I'm worried that I will get to a healthy weight and be fit etc, but still not be at the right % simply because I've gained "too much" muscle. Hopefully, even if I'm a few % over, if they see that what I've got is not an excess of fat any more, I will still be able to get the surgery. (It's kind of weight related, that's why it's important to them that you're at a certain weight.)0
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I wouldn't worry about accidentally gaining so much muscle that it skews your BMI.I don't like BMI simply because according to the doctor people in charge where I live, I need to be at 25% for a surgery. That means losing about 20kg -- and while I do know that I need to drop that weight anyway, I'm worried that I will get to a healthy weight and be fit etc, but still not be at the right % simply because I've gained "too much" muscle. Hopefully, even if I'm a few % over, if they see that what I've got is not an excess of fat any more, I will still be able to get the surgery. (It's kind of weight related, that's why it's important to them that you're at a certain weight.)
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DeguelloTex wrote: »
Oh, I'm not offering to switch, that's for sure.DeguelloTex wrote: »
At 24% BF, BMI had me at substantially overweight. Again, because it's poo for someone three standard deviations from the mean in height. Which, admittedly, isn't very many people, but that doesn't help me when the insurance company starts complaining.
Depends on sex.DeguelloTex wrote: »
What's the cutoff for a healthy body fat percentage?
Guessing he means in comparison to going by body weight percentage.DeguelloTex wrote: »
BMI skews towards underestimating body fat percentage.
Usually below 25% is considered acceptable for a man, 32% for a woman. Though as it is harder to get an accurate number for, I think there is no where near the medical correlations and research done it.
Wikipedia has this table for body fat:
Description Women Men
Essential fat 10–13% 2–5%
Athletes 14–20% 6–13%
Fitness 21–24% 14–17%
Average 25–31% 18–24%
Obese 32%+ 25%+
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_fat_percentage
I guess at 5'7.5" I'd offer to switch heights with you if you have a way to do it.
There are all kinds of holes in that make it poor for an absolute personal standard, but the deviations cancel out when you need a quick measure for research studies and epidemiological data collection. Not to mention, you can measure it as accurately as a scale and tape measure allow, but honestly, body fat can be measured with absolute accuracy only one time.
I think BMI is a reasonable first pass at the problem for the overwhelming majority of people. I just wish there were a way to get my insurance company to accept reasonable alternative criteria. The "tall BMI" or body fat percentage would be two candidates, imo.
If you get a worse insurance rate for your BMI while you're at a good body fat percentage, that is pretty crappy. It would be nice if they'd let you turn in something like a hydrostatic, bod pod, or DEXA scan body fat percentage and use that for determining if you're overweight that way as an alternative.
I've heard that there are new untested waters in life insurance where they're giving discounts to people based on their fitness tracker information and things like that. I think they're giving discounts more to get the data so they can use it in the future, more than out of any actual predictions that data makes currently.0
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