Alternative to BMI for healthy weight range for the very sho

TourThePast

While I feel that the BMI can be a useful tool for the average person, it's thought that the formula is inappropriate for people who are very short or very tall. (Obviously it's useless for bodybuilders too!)

My question is this: Can anyone point me to a resource for a suggested healthy weight range for short people, which is not based on BMI?

Obviously the ideal goal for me would be a certain % of body fat, but I'm looking for something expressed as a range in pounds - because that is something I can visualise.

Wimpey

http://www.brianmac.co.uk/idealw.htm

One of the many... I think each one is slightly different...

crisanderson27

http://www.brianmac.co.uk/idealw.htm

One of the many... I think each one is slightly different...

I've found the above listing to be useless for me...and think it's based on the BMI chart to be honest. I'm 5'7" tall, moderately muscular (certainly no bodybuilder, or even close), and here's a picture of me at 186lbs:



You can google bodyweight by wrist size and find dozens of listings for bodyweight based on your frame size. Unfortunately this is only really very accurate if you don't have much excess fat around your wrists. If you do, it's going to be inaccurate as well. Here's a link to a VERY general one:

http://www.healthcentral.com/diet-exercise/ideal-body-weight-3146-143.html

For the record, it shows me as a large frame, and 158 - 173.8 lbs as my ideal weight.

MUCH closer.

TourThePast

http://www.brianmac.co.uk/idealw.htm

One of the many... I think each one is slightly different...

Thanks for that; for my height it offers 89 - 114lb as the "healthy" range, which is interesting.

As the BMI figure (91 - 119lb) is higher, I'm more confused now - I thought BMI gave results that were too low for very short people, but the brianmac one is even lower. Would be interesting to know what sites base their figures on.

annarface

http://www.brianmac.co.uk/idealw.htm

One of the many... I think each one is slightly different...

According to this, I'm almost under what my healthy weight should be. But my BMI is in the middle of healthy, that's so weird.
So what should I follow? LOL.

TourThePast

Unfortunately this is only really very accurate if you don't have much excess fat around your wrists. If you do, it's going to be inaccurate as well. Here's a link to a VERY general one:

http://www.healthcentral.com/diet-exercise/ideal-body-weight-3146-143.html

I agree that one works for you.

I have extremely thin wrists, so according to that site, a healthy range for me would be between 84 and 92.4 lbs - that is definitely incorrect as a healthy range for my height. I once got down to 102lb, and you could see every single one of my ribs, and you don't need to be that thin to be healthy. As for the bottom end of 84lb, that's just scary!

I think that the trouble is, a lot of these formulas work for the normal range of person, but break down for someone who is extremely short.

Silly really of me to be looking for a figure, I'm obviously going to know what's healthy, but today I reached "halfway to healthy" on the BMI scale and it occurred to me that it was a bit silly to base my initial "health" goal on something so flawed.