Forget BMI
Replies
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cwolfman13 wrote: »cwolfman13 wrote: »
I'd never say that BMI should just be ignored by any means...but I do think a lot of people get pretty hung up on it and a lot of people don't understand the range in the first place and don't actually look at it in conjunction with their BF%.
^ Yeah, but the OP would (see the subject line), which is what we're refuting here.
As for getting hung up on it, that may be your experience, so I won't discount it. It's not my experience. Pretty much anyone I've ever known who has even referenced BMI has used it as a jumping off point, not some sort of gospel. So we agree there.
What they haven't done is basically said it's useless, or to "forget" it. Which ALSO is legitimate, IMO, and which goes contrary to the OP...which is why some of us are saying something.
When I say "hung up" I'm really referring to the countless people who just arbitrarily pick a weight at the low end of BMI, regardless of whether it's actually appropriate...I see it a lot here, and it kind of goes with my comment about not understanding the range either.
My wife for example is 5'3" on a good day with an athletic build and muscular relative to many women...She looks great at the higher end of her BMI range and lean and fit as hell at about 130 Lbs...below that, she would start looking a little sickly, and there's no way she would look good or look healthy at the low end because it just doesn't fit her build and she would have to torch a lot of LBM to boot...but I say people get so into the notion that they have to be the lowest to be healthy, even if it's just not really appropriate for the way they're built.
Okay, but again...I don't see ^ this ^ as being the issue here (on this thread) at all? Nor do I see BMI itself pushing people to go at the low end and I haven't witnessed this particular issue much at all, that sounds (sorry) something more like an ED or some sort of body issue to me. I see a lot of people here wanting to get down TO their BMI. I haven't seen an overabundance of people saying they must have X very low BMI, except those in competition (mostly), nor have I seen it in real life/the analog world. Just people who already would have used other measurements to be an extreme even if the notion of BMI
never existed.
I mean I think it's lovely that you care for your wife and worry about her. That made my heart melt. I hear your concern and I agree that it's a concern for both of you - her, for health and comfort and you, who want her to be healthy.
But BMI itself does NOT make this judgment that you must be on the lower end of it nor do I see a whole lot of people who do talk about BMI leaning in that direction at all. If anything I see loads of people, especially on here, who say they have always felt "most comfortable" or whatever at the higher range.
But either way...and again, this in NO WAY negates your care and concern for your wife, please understand that - I can not for the life of me see how worry over the probably pretty few people who will insist on being at the lowest possible BMI (for whatever reason??) supports the whole "forget BMI!" or "BMI is no indicator" thing. Insisting on being as close as possible to underweight doesn't depend upon BMI knowledge and it's doubtful the existence of this particular measurement system encourages people to go to the lower end. I just am not getting/understanding that part nor, as I said, do I really see this in any sort of big numbers way as a larger concern as regards BMI.1 -
I just ordered a "Personal Fat Tester." Should be fun.
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Ironandwine69 wrote: »BMI tells me I'm fat.
Same lol. While I'm not shredded either, I don't think myself or anyone I know would refer to me as obese. BMI just can't compensate for people with any sort of muscle mass.0 -
stanmann571 wrote: »BMI is a reasonable guide for more people than those for whom it isn't, in the sense that most people can find a weight that would be healthy for them somewhere in the normal BMI range. But it's a screening tool, not a definitive answer for any one individual.
When BMI said I was obese (at BMI 30.4), I was, even though all my friends said "you're not fat!" when I mentioned that I was. I knew then, and now demonstrate (at a BMI around 21) that I have essentially no hips, bone-wise.
Y'know what it does when BMI is deprecated by the small percentage of people who are much more muscular than average, or who have unusual body types? It gives people at an unhealthily high weight, people to whom their BMI should be a wake-up call, another reason to lie to themselves and feel justified, 'cause Science.
A guy I know said he was talking about his weight loss plans to a 3rd party, and mentioned his obese BMI. She said incredulously "You're not obese! Why, if you're obese, then I would surely be obese, too." He didn't tell her she was . . . but she was.
Oh my gosh, THIS, so very this.
This is what I ALWAYS think of when people start in about how BMI is "meaningless" (no) and "useless" (also no).
Because most of the people saying it - generally, anyway - are NOT so unbelievably ripped, stacked and muscularly solid that they are actually showing an "obese" BMI even though they have very low body fat. Most.
And of those who are, seriously? They know they're in the gym X amount of hours per day (or doing whatever muscle-building exercises they're doing). They're not sitting around maybe getting two 30-minute walks in a week plus two Pilates sessions and then discovering to their surprise that they are those outliers. If you're in this small category you know it.
The average person slopping around like the rest of us, with an obese BMI? Yeah, that person (that average person) is indeed obese...not so unbelievably ripped and workout regimented that s/he is literally obese with a very low body fat percentage.
Be real here. And I am not excluding myself. When I was very fat I absolutely loved hearing "BMI is nonsense" (or useless, zero indicator, bogus, etc., etc.) because it made me feel better about myself and allowed me to continue to lie to myself and I feel as if that's the main function of the whole "BMI is baloney" thing.
A small percentage, the outliers, who actually do measure obese by BMI, have very low body fat AND are touting "BMI is nonsense" is just that, a pretty small percentage. Those in this category are outliers to being with; finding people among that category who, for whatever reason, go out of their way to bang the BMI is totally useless drum is smaller yet, just using logic alone.
Most of the people listening to this sort of commentary, and following it loudly, are obese-obese, as in: overly fat. I am not judging. As I said, I always wanted to fully believe this stuff as an overlying, general, averages rule too, when I was seriously obese (nearly morbidly obese, by the numbers). Saying BMI can be inaccurate for a small percentage of outliers is one thing, and true. Saying a general "forget BMI" thing is dangerous as it helps unhealthy people stay unhealthy and in la-la-land. In essence, though not exactly in mechanism this is like shouting "I know so many smokers who were healthy and fit until the day they died" but then adding onto that, "...therefore, forget smoking studies! They're bogus."
JMO.
Nobody is claiming to be ripped.... Just "normal/healthy" BF% with above average nonfat Body mass.
now what are the chances that this will happen and they won't fall into BMI range?
0 to none...outliers are just that...those that are very unusual, very different from the average.
People with normal health BF% and above average body mass would be few and far between and considered outliers.
I would love to see the stats are what % of the population doesn't fall into the BMI range and is considered healthy
Statistics is an interesting thing. Given a normal distribution, 32% of people fall 1 standard deviation outside the mean, and 95% are 2 standard deviations.
Height follows a normal distribution. The average American male is 5'10". One standard deviation is 3", so 68% of American men are between 5'7" and 6'1". But nearly 1 in 3 are not!
Similarly, for women in the United States, the average height is 5'5" with a standard deviation of 3.5", meaning 68% of women fall between 5'1.5" and 5'8.5"
You would hardly say that there are "almost no women taller than 5'8.5" ", though. So why dismiss people with larger-than-the-median lean body mass?
Now, healthy weight does not exist on a normal distribution, it is skewed, heavily, towards higher weights. That is because the physiological consequences of being underweight are acute, dramatic, and universal ; while those of being bigger are longer - term and also influenced by a variety of genetic, environmental, and physiological factors. That is to say, if you are underweight, you will experience disease as a consequence, it's inevitable ; but disease as a result of overweight is a probability rather than a certainty (albeit one that increases with increasing fat mass) also influenced by other factors.
I will follow this post up later with a discussion of the history and limitation of the BMI, along with the rationale behind the NIH and WHO "healthy BMI" cutoff, the emergence of different recommendations for Asian populations, and a defense of the older cutoff level for some populations, particularly Northern Europeans.6 -
stanmann571 wrote: »BMI is a reasonable guide for more people than those for whom it isn't, in the sense that most people can find a weight that would be healthy for them somewhere in the normal BMI range. But it's a screening tool, not a definitive answer for any one individual.
When BMI said I was obese (at BMI 30.4), I was, even though all my friends said "you're not fat!" when I mentioned that I was. I knew then, and now demonstrate (at a BMI around 21) that I have essentially no hips, bone-wise.
Y'know what it does when BMI is deprecated by the small percentage of people who are much more muscular than average, or who have unusual body types? It gives people at an unhealthily high weight, people to whom their BMI should be a wake-up call, another reason to lie to themselves and feel justified, 'cause Science.
A guy I know said he was talking about his weight loss plans to a 3rd party, and mentioned his obese BMI. She said incredulously "You're not obese! Why, if you're obese, then I would surely be obese, too." He didn't tell her she was . . . but she was.
Oh my gosh, THIS, so very this.
This is what I ALWAYS think of when people start in about how BMI is "meaningless" (no) and "useless" (also no).
Because most of the people saying it - generally, anyway - are NOT so unbelievably ripped, stacked and muscularly solid that they are actually showing an "obese" BMI even though they have very low body fat. Most.
And of those who are, seriously? They know they're in the gym X amount of hours per day (or doing whatever muscle-building exercises they're doing). They're not sitting around maybe getting two 30-minute walks in a week plus two Pilates sessions and then discovering to their surprise that they are those outliers. If you're in this small category you know it.
The average person slopping around like the rest of us, with an obese BMI? Yeah, that person (that average person) is indeed obese...not so unbelievably ripped and workout regimented that s/he is literally obese with a very low body fat percentage.
Be real here. And I am not excluding myself. When I was very fat I absolutely loved hearing "BMI is nonsense" (or useless, zero indicator, bogus, etc., etc.) because it made me feel better about myself and allowed me to continue to lie to myself and I feel as if that's the main function of the whole "BMI is baloney" thing.
A small percentage, the outliers, who actually do measure obese by BMI, have very low body fat AND are touting "BMI is nonsense" is just that, a pretty small percentage. Those in this category are outliers to being with; finding people among that category who, for whatever reason, go out of their way to bang the BMI is totally useless drum is smaller yet, just using logic alone.
Most of the people listening to this sort of commentary, and following it loudly, are obese-obese, as in: overly fat. I am not judging. As I said, I always wanted to fully believe this stuff as an overlying, general, averages rule too, when I was seriously obese (nearly morbidly obese, by the numbers). Saying BMI can be inaccurate for a small percentage of outliers is one thing, and true. Saying a general "forget BMI" thing is dangerous as it helps unhealthy people stay unhealthy and in la-la-land. In essence, though not exactly in mechanism this is like shouting "I know so many smokers who were healthy and fit until the day they died" but then adding onto that, "...therefore, forget smoking studies! They're bogus."
JMO.
Nobody is claiming to be ripped.... Just "normal/healthy" BF% with above average nonfat Body mass.
now what are the chances that this will happen and they won't fall into BMI range?
0 to none...outliers are just that...those that are very unusual, very different from the average.
People with normal health BF% and above average body mass would be few and far between and considered outliers.
I would love to see the stats are what % of the population doesn't fall into the BMI range and is considered healthy
Statistics is an interesting thing. Given a normal distribution, 32% of people fall 1 standard deviation outside the mean, and 95% are 2 standard deviations.
Height follows a normal distribution. The average American male is 5'10". One standard deviation is 3", so 68% of American men are between 5'7" and 6'1". But nearly 1 in 3 are not!
Similarly, for women in the United States, the average height is 5'5" with a standard deviation of 3.5", meaning 68% of women fall between 5'1.5" and 5'8.5"
You would hardly say that there are "almost no women taller than 5'8.5" ", though. So why dismiss people with larger-than-the-median lean body mass?
Now, healthy weight does not exist on a normal distribution, it is skewed, heavily, towards higher weights. That is because the physiological consequences of being underweight are acute, dramatic, and universal ; while those of being bigger are longer - term and also influenced by a variety of genetic, environmental, and physiological factors. That is to say, if you are underweight, you will experience disease as a consequence, it's inevitable ; but disease as a result of overweight is a probability rather than a certainty (albeit one that increases with increasing fat mass) also influenced by other factors.
I will follow this post up later with a discussion of the history and limitation of the BMI, along with the rationale behind the NIH and WHO "healthy BMI" cutoff, the emergence of different recommendations for Asian populations, and a defense of the older cutoff level for some populations, particularly Northern Europeans.
to the bolded part...I don't dismiss outliers at all...but to be quite frank here most are not outliers most have a skewed body image (I used to be one of them) and are fatter than they want to believe or think.
And no one has said that there aren't limitations to BMI...but there are limitations to weighing yourself on a scale too or using a tape measure or even a DXA or BodPod test for BF% but those are not thrown out as "useless"...
all measurements have limitations hence my comment to take them all and then look in the mirror be honest and then decide if you need to lose weight.3 -
Simple test for males if you BMI says obese and you think you are muscular. Stand naked, can you look straight down and see your junk without a mirror? If you can, your okay, otherwise, yes you are obese.3
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0 to none...outliers are just that...those that are very unusual, very different from the average.
If this isn't dismissing 32% of the population, I don't know what is. BMI uses 1 standard deviation, not 3.
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The OP, including the subject line, actually dismissed the non-outliers...i.e., the majority.3
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0 to none...outliers are just that...those that are very unusual, very different from the average.
If this isn't dismissing 32% of the population, I don't know what is. BMI uses 1 standard deviation, not 3.
you took that out of context...that was in reference to someone referencing an outlier as "average"...3
This discussion has been closed.
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