Great news everyone: no more arguing over BMI

threewins

Amazon has a fitness service called Halo which includes an ability to estimate your body fat using a smartphone app and analysis of the images.

This service costs money but I expect free apps to appear within 5 years. They'll analyse the images inside the phone and not need to send data to a data centre.

BMI will become less used, there'll be a slow progression to body fat percentage instead. Discussions about body builders with overweight or obese category BMI will no longer happen!

Theoldguy1

And except for MAYBE 1% of the population (who already know who they are) someone that is obese based on BMI will also be obese on a measure of bodyfat.

lgfrie

Doctors and insurance companies will continue to use BMI, because it's a quick shorthand snapshot of your obesity level.

Nothing does quite what BMI does - one simple number which pegs you to actuarial tables for any disease and tell your doctor or insurer where you stand as far as girth is concerned.

No reason not to use cool online tools, of course.

PAV8888

threewins wrote: »

I expect free apps to appear within 5 years. They'll analyse the images inside the phone and not need to send data to a data centre.

BMI will become less used, there'll be a slow progression to body fat percentage instead. Discussions about body builders with overweight or obese category BMI will no longer happen!

You mean like secondary to BMI "confirmatory" measurements such as waist circumference or waist to hip or waist to height measurements that have all but displaced BMI to date?

Yet all three only require a tape measure and a patient--so I don't see them as particularly more complex than running a smartphone app on the said already semi nakid patient!

Are you quite sure that the certified/medical version of the app will be free?

AnnPT77

So in 5 years we'll be arguing about the body fat apps because "my husband is super buff and it still says he's fat" and "all the women in my family have big bones and wide hips so it just doesn't see us right"?

Cool. Big improvement.

The problem with BMI isn't with the metric. The problem is with how humans (mis)understand and (mis)use it. 5 years from now, we'll still have the same kind of humans.

OP, your optimism is really touching.

L1zardQueen

There is a problem with buying clothing on online stores with a lot of returns because of incorrect sizing. I think online stores are trying to solve this problem with this type of app not to calculate BMI’s. I might be wrong. If I can find the link I read a few days ago, I will post it.

https://www.consumerreports.org/cro/news/2014/07/fitting-apps-help-you-get-the-right-size-

Here’s another. https://www.google.com/aclk?sa=L&ai=DChcSEwjrvYHPv8PrAhVFPa0GHQHUCdsYABACGgJwdg&sig=AOD64_0kSXt7dKp3SJTWbtjVdHZCNV8q9A&q&adurl&ved=2ahUKEwiSqPjOv8PrAhW6IDQIHRgmA0cQ0Qx6BAgPEAE

springlering62

It occurs to me that nothing would ever prevent an argument on MFP.

lorrpb

BMI is a calculated statistic based on a repeatable formula. All the others are SWAGs at best. All methods, including BMI, are subject to misinterpretation by those who don’t understand them, and that will never change. 👀

davepirat

Apart from what everyone else has said, I wonder how accurate the results of an app estimating bf% from pictures are going to be.
I actually recently looked at the study in which the FFMI was invented and one part of their data was bodyfat estimates based on pictures for Mr. America winners back from the 40s (as data of people with extremely high amounts of muscle without using steroids). The guy who did the estimates had decades of experience in measuring bodyfat and they still said that this method has an obvious margin of error.

Courtscan2

I take these with a pretty huge grain of salt. I had an assessment of my body fat run recently by putting my photo through some software, and it came out at 35% - which would put me pretty squarely in obese. My BMI is 24.8, so I am definitely not super lean, but not even technically overweight according to BMI, and I lift a lot of weights, so I feel like there's a fair bit of lean mass there. There is no way I am 35% body fat.

gcminton

I wonder if this would work any better than the existing websites with pictures you can look at to help you estimate your BF%. It sounds like it'd be just as reliable.

DevilsFan1

BMI is a perfectly good "back of the envelope" measure of healthy weight for most people. Many of the people who complain about BMI that think it doesn't work for them are seriously overestimating the amount of muscle they have on their bodies. Perhaps waist-to-height ratio is a bit better measure than BMI, but BMI is adequate for the general population.

anacline

"General Practitioners", what all of you are talking about calling "doctors" don't even care about body fat percentage when you've had it done by a professional clinic using a submersion scale, which is the most accurate measure.

I had that done as part of a study when I was 135 lbs and was measured at 14% body fat. I brought this to a GP, in College Station Texas, to see if they thought my feeling lightheaded, going blind, and fainting randomly could be due to low body fat. She didn't want to hear it, didn't care I was having these random spells of dizziness, blindness, and occasional fainting. No Fs were given. Told me going blind and fainting randomly is normal. In the end I tried to get argumentative saying I could be a danger to people on the road if I faint while driving, and I didn't have these problems when I was 160 lbs maybe I should go back to that weight so I don't risk other people's lives and she just angrily said. "Be fat if you want to be fat, I don't care!"

I don't want to be fat, I don't want to be skinny. I want what's best for my health and GPs these days are unwilling to help patients with that. 4 other GPs at College Station Texas also were along the same lines of useless. I got depressed and gained over 100 lbs in 4 years. Stopped fainting at least so I could safely drive to interviews and work, which makes 100 lbs of fat more useful than a doctor to me.

This app will be better than a GP, 100%. Don't even bring those lazy arrogant idiots into this.

NovusDies

springlering62 wrote: »

It occurs to me that nothing would ever prevent an argument on MFP.

I disagree. Wanna start a debate thread over it?

kshama2001

L1zardQueen wrote: »

There is a problem with buying clothing on online stores with a lot of returns because of incorrect sizing. I think online stores are trying to solve this problem with this type of app not to calculate BMI’s. I might be wrong. If I can find the link I read a few days ago, I will post it.

https://www.consumerreports.org/cro/news/2014/07/fitting-apps-help-you-get-the-right-size-

Here’s another. https://www.google.com/aclk?sa=L&ai=DChcSEwjrvYHPv8PrAhVFPa0GHQHUCdsYABACGgJwdg&sig=AOD64_0kSXt7dKp3SJTWbtjVdHZCNV8q9A&q&adurl&ved=2ahUKEwiSqPjOv8PrAhW6IDQIHRgmA0cQ0Qx6BAgPEAE

Ugh, I hate buying clothes on line. (The fitting rooms of many stores near me are currently closed due to the coronavirus.)

I recently bought a tankini top in three sizes. The cups were too big in the larger sizes and the band and rest of it too small in the smallest size. Maybe I could have made the middle size work, but the season is almost over and who knows what size I will be next year, so they all went back.