Anyone Else "Overweight" on the BMI Chart but Healthy, Active, Happy and not Really "Overweight"

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Replies

  • Kst76
    Kst76 Posts: 935 Member
    I am 5'8", and weigh 180 lbs in the pics below. According to bmi, I should weigh below 160. That puts me at 20 lbs overweight, and 15 lbs shy of obese. Yeah, BMI is meaningless.

    1emqrtor0h88.jpg
    78gt4oqvdtvo.jpg
    I am 5'8", and weigh 180 lbs in the pics below. According to bmi, I should weigh below 160. That puts me at 20 lbs overweight, and 15 lbs shy of obese. Yeah, BMI is meaningless.

    1emqrtor0h88.jpg
    78gt4oqvdtvo.jpg
    I am 5'8", and weigh 180 lbs in the pics below. According to bmi, I should weigh below 160. That puts me at 20 lbs overweight, and 15 lbs shy of obese. Yeah, BMI is meaningless.

    1emqrtor0h88.jpg
    78gt4oqvdtvo.jpg

    Yeah...you better not lose any more weight....
  • bennettinfinity
    bennettinfinity Posts: 865 Member
    edited March 2018
    DX2JX2 wrote: »
    DX2JX2 wrote: »
    I am 5'8", and weigh 180 lbs in the pics below. According to bmi, I should weigh below 160. That puts me at 20 lbs overweight, and 15 lbs shy of obese. Yeah, BMI is meaningless.

    To be fair, it's readily acknowledged that BMI is fairly worthless for muscular individuals and I think you know that already.

    That said, it can be pretty representative for the rest of us. The problem is when non-muscular individuals believe that they fall into the category of people who can ignore BMI. Thus people believing that they can't afford to drop below a BMI of 27 for fear of looking malnourished!

    But this is precisely why BMI is a poor metric at the individual level - it's only meaningful within context.

    From a population perspective (as BMI is intended to be used), if I tell you that Population A has a BMI of 24 and Population B has a BMI of 26, you'd be correct in concluding that Population B has a generally higher BF%.

    But if I tell you that Individual A has a BMI of 24 and Individual B has a BMI of 26, you can't make any determinations without additional context - and likely the additional context would be sufficient to make determinations absent the individual BMIs.

    Which is why I hate that some insurance companies use BMI as a rating tool.

    True. BMI is horrible as an actuarial tool where any imprecision makes the tool worthless, but I do think that it can serve a purpose as a public awareness/education tool.

    From the latter perspective, arguing between 24 and 26 is splitting hairs. The real issue are the people pushing 30 who do not even consider that they might need to do something about their weight.

    I respectfully disagree - I picked these numbers specifically because the 24 would be considered 'healthy' while the 26 would not - absent any additional context (such as when used as an actuarial tool, for example) - when in fact, the opposite might well be true.
  • DomesticKat
    DomesticKat Posts: 565 Member
    It's been kind of an interesting experiment for me. Two years ago at the same BMI, I was 4 inches bigger in my waist and 3 inches bigger in my hips. This time around I've been able to wear old clothes that didn't fit until I was 20 pounds lighter the last go around. I don't consider myself a body builder, but body composition definitely plays a part when we consider BMI. It ultimately comes down to personal goals. I wouldn't write BMI off entirely, though. The My Body Gallery site that was posted shows some good examples of the same idea.
  • bennettinfinity
    bennettinfinity Posts: 865 Member
    DX2JX2 wrote: »

    I respectfully disagree - I picked these numbers specifically because the 24 would be considered 'healthy' while the 26 would not - absent any additional context (such as when used as an actuarial tool, for example) - when in fact, the opposite might well be true.

    Right, but this very thread shows that people are comfortable arriving at the conclusion that they are fine with sitting at a BMI of 26. Essentially, the BMI charts did their jobs in motivating the conversation and decision.

    If anything, my issue with BMI is the subjective connotations given to the ranges by people like us and lazy/misinformed health professionals. While it's clear that being obese poses health risks and should be avoided, I think the direct link between 'overweight' and 'unhealthy' is more of a layperson thing and is driven by our skewed interpretation of the term 'overweight' resulting from decades of fad diets and flawed health marketing.

    In reality, the official NIH or WHO literature avoids referring to the overweight category as generically 'unhealthy' and are very clear about saying that 'overweight' simply means that you may need to lose weight if combined with some other risk factors or at the very least, you might want to avoid putting on any more weight. Basically, they treat the term 'overweight' as a clinical definition, rather than a judgmental one. Healthy vs. unhealthy is never mentioned.

    I agree with the essence of what you're saying, but by virtue of labeling the 'Healthy' range 'Healthy', the implication is that the other ranges are 'Unhealthy'. I don't think I'd have as much a problem with it if it were labeled 'Normal' or something along those lines - especially since it's derived statistically - and 'Normal' by definition describes a probability density function which allows for outliers.
  • DX2JX2
    DX2JX2 Posts: 1,921 Member
    edited March 2018
    DX2JX2 wrote: »

    I respectfully disagree - I picked these numbers specifically because the 24 would be considered 'healthy' while the 26 would not - absent any additional context (such as when used as an actuarial tool, for example) - when in fact, the opposite might well be true.

    Right, but this very thread shows that people are comfortable arriving at the conclusion that they are fine with sitting at a BMI of 26. Essentially, the BMI charts did their jobs in motivating the conversation and decision.

    If anything, my issue with BMI is the subjective connotations given to the ranges by people like us and lazy/misinformed health professionals. While it's clear that being obese poses health risks and should be avoided, I think the direct link between 'overweight' and 'unhealthy' is more of a layperson thing and is driven by our skewed interpretation of the term 'overweight' resulting from decades of fad diets and flawed health marketing.

    In reality, the official NIH or WHO literature avoids referring to the overweight category as generically 'unhealthy' and are very clear about saying that 'overweight' simply means that you may need to lose weight if combined with some other risk factors or at the very least, you might want to avoid putting on any more weight. Basically, they treat the term 'overweight' as a clinical definition, rather than a judgmental one. Healthy vs. unhealthy is never mentioned.

    I agree with the essence of what you're saying, but by virtue of labeling the 'Healthy' range 'Healthy', the implication is that the other ranges are 'Unhealthy'. I don't think I'd have as much a problem with it if it were labeled 'Normal' or something along those lines - especially since it's derived statistically - and 'Normal' by definition describes a probability density function which allows for outliers.

    Agreed. Poor choice of wording creates a lot of problems with interpretation. Better names could have been risk-based (low-risk, potential increased risk, high risk, and severe risk for example) since ultimately the link between BMI and health risks is what drives the classifications anyway..
  • Need2Exerc1se
    Need2Exerc1se Posts: 13,575 Member
    AnvilHead wrote: »
    Francl27 wrote: »
    I don't think that 12 lbs will make any difference whatsoever in your health, so I wouldn't even worry about it.

    I don't see the logic in that. If 12 makes no difference then how would 24 or 36 or 48 or ...

    So using that same logic, an extra one dollar in your bank account would make no difference, so neither would an extra $100,000?

    Or is there maybe a point at which a number reaches significance?

    Yes, that is correct. If $1 makes no difference how can a multiple of it. $1 makes a very small difference, but it's still a difference.
  • Kst76
    Kst76 Posts: 935 Member
    Overweight doesn't mean unhealthy anymore than underweight. And you can be "too fat" even if you are within a haelthy BMI.