Your take on BMI

If I had a BMI of 25, I would feel severely overweight. That's just me though.

Well, it was developed between 1830 and 1850 and they still use it. :noway: I think they could come up with something a little more accurate.

They have, its called a DEXA scan, which measures your body fat %, but you need some expensive gear to measure that accurately. So BMI still ends up being affordable/reliable....and given that its still used nearly 200 years later, proves that it is quite more accurate than some believe.

So what would you say to someone whose measurements are healthy, (a woman with a waist under 30 etc...) but whose BMI is 26? Technically, I'm overweight,

That they likely do not have weight related risk of disease.

http://www.cdc.gov/healthyweight/assessing/bmi/adult_bmi/index.html#Why

It is also important to remember that BMI is only one factor related to risk for disease. For assessing someone's likelihood of developing overweight- or obesity-related diseases, the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute guidelines recommend looking at two other predictors:

•The individual's waist circumference (because abdominal fat is a predictor of risk for obesity-related diseases).
•Other risk factors the individual has for diseases and conditions associated with obesity (for example, high blood pressure or physical inactivity).

It doesn't take muscle into consideration, just height and weight.....so it's crap...

OMG, I love this!!!

Hysterical. But I am 6' tall, 245 now. I didn't look anything like the blob on the right at 250.

Also, I don't know how "fat" you were at 6 ft tall and 155, but your BMI would not be anywhere near the overweight category. At 6 ft you'd have to weigh 184 lbs to be categorized as overweight (BMI > 25).

My mental image was "fat." Though everyone around me saw someone that looked underweight. Distorted body image was a struggle for most of my life.
I like the steady weight loss I am doing now as opposed to "express loss" because it is giving my brain time to adapt my mental image to my actual size.
My current goal weight is just under what BMI calls overweight. As I get closer to that weight I hope to be able to adjust based on a more realistic body image.
I still have 65# to go. But my wife already said my legs are skinny. I guess I get that from my father. So maybe adding an extra leg day will help in that department. One of my goals has been to get my torso proportional to my arms and legs.

I wold agree with you that a BMI of slightly below overweight (not underweight..oops) is probably the "best look" for a man of average build.
There have been lots of studies on BMI and attractiveness (check out Martin Tovee's stuff....but it relates mostly to women).
The ideal BMI "look" for an "average" man is 24, for women, BMI 19-20.

and no, there is no such thing as being "big boned". Now, stop lying to yourself.

So nobody ever has had a lower bone density or thicker bones than anyone else? Cool.

BMI is used by the insurance industry as a measure of overall wellness. However it should not be used as an indicator for: athletes, younger people, older people....athletes should be obvious...Lebron James is 275 and 6'8 and is grotesquely obese according to the indicators and yet is about 6% body fat....younger people change so rapidly they cannot use the height/weight ratio as an indicator so they have to use a percentile rank...above 95percentile you are obese, 85to 95 percentile you are overweight....for kids, you need height, weight, the age and date the measure was taken to get the percentile.... For older people (70+), there is more fat just under the skin for insulation and even the body fat indicators are not a great measure of overall wellness.

6'8" 275 is a BMI of 30.2. That is barely over the limit for obese, certainly not "grotesquely obese." It puts him at roughly 30 pounds overweight. He also has a significantly higher amount of muscle mass than the average person. He's also much higher than 6% body fat.

This is not 6% body fat, not even close, probably closer to 15-20%.

and no, there is no such thing as being "big boned". Now, stop lying to yourself.

So nobody ever has had a lower bone density or thicker bones than anyone else? Cool.

Not enough of a difference to affect BMI ranges.

Perhaps not. Some people do genuinely have higher bone weight than someone else their height and gender, though. Never considered it a reason I was fat, though. Bones don't jiggle.

BMI is fine for what it's for; the general population that does little to no exercise. I am glad it's pretty much ignored by Doctors here in the UK; on an inidividual basis anyway.

For myself it's not really a good gauge. I stayed active; swum, hit the gym, played rugby etc all through my weight gain so my LBM is higher than the average. If I wasn't to lose any LBM and drop to 0% bodyfat (being rather generous with 35% on me at present - I would think it's lower), I'd weigh about 200lbs @ 5'9", so I'd still be obese.

My bean pole friend, who is 6'3" and about 82kg, falls into healthy, slightly trended toward the high end. He has visible abs and much better muscle definition all over however, and I'd probably say he's about 14% bodyfat. But then, my calves are pretty much as big as his thighs. He could quite happily stand to gain a few pounds in fat or muscle.

It's important to consider extra factors on an individual basis, but it works fine for what it was intended.

and no, there is no such thing as being "big boned". Now, stop lying to yourself.

So nobody ever has had a lower bone density or thicker bones than anyone else? Cool.

Or even a bone structure than made them bigger. No one is taller than anyone else. Every woman has the exact same pelvis alignment. Yep. It's true.

and no, there is no such thing as being "big boned". Now, stop lying to yourself.

So nobody ever has had a lower bone density or thicker bones than anyone else? Cool.

Not enough of a difference to affect BMI ranges.

True, but I hate it when people say everyone has the same bone structure. Our bones will weigh roughly the same, but they are aligned very differently in different people. So people can be the same height and weight, yet one looks bigger than the other, whether it be taller or with wider hips or whatever.

Another interesting fact about the BMI - the "overweight" threshold was changed in 1998 from 27.5 to 25. So overnight an estimated 30 million Americans went from being classified as "normal" to "overweight". I wonder who that decision made a buttload of money for??

I always wonder if that is taken into account when people talk about how many more people are overweight now? Did people get fatter or did they just change the goal posts.

I like this BMI calculator: http://www.webmd.com/diet/calc-bmi-plus

I would think it's a bit more accurate than the average BMI since it takes into account body shape, activity level, and bone structure.

Does not work for me - it is just a basic BMI calculator. Activity level has nothing to do with the BMI, plus it just asks for pant size which has very little to do with bone structure and a lot to do with BF% and where that is distributed. The additional questions are re weight loss and not re BMI.

It has me at the low end of overweight!!

Well then, clearly you are just fat and in denial. You're a drain on the health system and your heart will likely explode in the next 3 - 6 months.... not srs

Well my take is I started at a BMI of 73.9 @ 560 lbs. I have since lost 311 lbs. and had 17 lbs. of skin removed 12 weeks ago. I have not stepped back on the scale (set a date of Jan. 1 to weigh in again) and suspect I have put back on 8-10 lbs. which I knew was going to happen with not being able to exercise and kept my caloric intake a little above maintenance to promote healing. So that being said I am guess my current weight is around 242 lbs, for a total weight loss of 318 lbs. give or take, putting my BMI @ 31.9 and still considered obese... I put a couple picture we took 2 weeks ago below now tell me do I look obese???? I can feel my hip bones... I went into the service (US Army) in 1988 at 238 lbs. at 18 years of age... I can care less what the BMI says cause I know how I feel... Best of Luck....

Well my take is I started at a BMI of 73.9 @ 560 lbs. I have since lost 311 lbs. and had 17 lbs. of skin removed 12 weeks ago. I have not stepped back on the scale (set a date of Jan. 1 to weigh in again) and suspect I have put back on 8-10 lbs. which I knew was going to happen with not being able to exercise and kept my caloric intake a little above maintenance to promote healing. So that being said I am guess my current weight is around 242 lbs, for a total weight loss of 318 lbs. give or take, putting my BMI @ 31.9 and still considered obese... I put a couple picture we took 2 weeks ago below now tell me do I look obese???? I can feel my hip bones... I went into the service (US Army) in 1988 at 238 lbs. at 18 years of age... I can care less what the BMI says cause I know how I feel... Best of Luck....

Genuine question, but I can see how it may sound offensive, so please understand no offence is intended.

Is there a reason you wear the knee braces?

None taken.... Through the 90's I ran a beer truck for a Budweiser distributor and threw off 800-1000 cases a day along with 8-10 kegs. Between that and getting in and out of the tractor/trailer I had worn the cartilage out of my right knee and it eventually cost me my job there and then I spent the next 10 years over 400 lbs.(the last 3 of that over 500 pounds) and then over the last 41 months of getting the weight off I destroyed my other knee, so now I have Grade 3/4 Osteoarthritis in both knee's, shredded (and my ortho doctor has removed) all cartilage and meniscus, and somewhere over this weight loss I destroyed my ACL in my left knee (the last clean out he said it was completely gone, but with the other damage, he isn't going to repair it). I could not walk when I started this journey in May of 2009 (at 560 lbs. I couldn't support my own weight) so I spent 17 months in the pool losing 170ish pounds. As the weight came off my therapist kept moving me to the shallow end of the pool making me exercise in more of my own body weight but we found out really fast to get onto dry ground i was in need of some assistance so they worked with my surgeon and the rep from Don Joy and they fitted me with OA braces (the majority of my damage is in the inner compartment of both knee's so the braces unload and distribute my weight evenly across the joint and keeps my knee's from twisting. I had my last Dual MRI in march of 2012 and another clean out of my left knee then as well and he said at that time that we have exhaust all the surgery clean outs, knee injections (been getting them for the last 12 years, and pain meds (on 3 now) and next step is total knee replacements which now that I have had my Skin removal surgery, we just need 6 months between it and another major surgery so now we are shooting for March 2013 for 2 total knee replacements to finish this journey....... We tried like heck since 2003 to prolong the inevitable and was hoping to get me to 50 but the weight problem just caused that to excel this whole process but hey I am not going to complain, I am still 1000x better off right now today than I was in May of 2009 when I was trying to talk myself out of suicide from being trapped in my home, super morbidly obese and having no life to speak of....

None taken.... Through the 90's I ran a beer truck for a Budweiser distributor and threw off 800-1000 cases a day along with 8-10 kegs. Between that and getting in and out of the tractor/trailer I had worn the cartilage out of my right knee and it eventually cost me my job there and then I spent the next 10 years over 400 lbs.(the last 3 of that over 500 pounds) and then over the last 41 months of getting the weight off I destroyed my other knee, so now I have Grade 3/4 Osteoarthritis in both knee's, shredded (and my ortho doctor has removed) all cartilage and meniscus, and somewhere over this weight loss I destroyed my ACL in my left knee (the last clean out he said it was completely gone, but with the other damage, he isn't going to repair it). I could not walk when I started this journey in May of 2009 (at 560 lbs. I couldn't support my own weight) so I spent 17 months in the pool losing 170ish pounds. As the weight came off my therapist kept moving me to the shallow end of the pool making me exercise in more of my own body weight but we found out really fast to get onto dry ground i was in need of some assistance so they worked with my surgeon and the rep from Don Joy and they fitted me with OA braces (the majority of my damage is in the inner compartment of both knee's so the braces unload and distribute my weight evenly across the joint and keeps my knee's from twisting. I had my last Dual MRI in march of 2012 and another clean out of my left knee then as well and he said at that time that we have exhaust all the surgery clean outs, knee injections (been getting them for the last 12 years, and pain meds (on 3 now) and next step is total knee replacements which now that I have had my Skin removal surgery, we just need 6 months between it and another major surgery so now we are shooting for March 2013 for 2 total knee replacements to finish this journey....... We tried like heck since 2003 to prolong the inevitable and was hoping to get me to 50 but the weight problem just caused that to excel this whole process but hey I am not going to complain, I am still 1000x better off right now today than I was in May of 2009 when I was trying to talk myself out of suicide from being trapped in my home, super morbidly obese and having no life to speak of....

Sounds painful!
My whole training (and competing) is based around being able to squat deep and heavy, so I always wonder about these things.

Will they be there forever, or is there some hope of further recovery in the long term picture?

Yeah my days of deadlifting and squats are long gone (and oh how I miss it!!) but I can do just about everything else not pain free mind you, my knee's dictate what I can and can not do daily and I base my workouts around that... Once the totals are done I should be able to lose the braces! (Thank God) lol...

and no, there is no such thing as being "big boned". Now, stop lying to yourself.

So nobody ever has had a lower bone density or thicker bones than anyone else? Cool.

Not enough of a difference to affect BMI ranges.

True, but I hate it when people say everyone has the same bone structure. Our bones will weigh roughly the same, but they are aligned very differently in different people. So people can be the same height and weight, yet one looks bigger than the other, whether it be taller or with wider hips or whatever.

Yes, but the point of the original comment was that people use the "big boned" excuse to justify weighing 40-50 pounds more than they should. That's a cop out excuse, it's invalid. Bone structure can represent up to a 10 pound difference in weight, but the actual BMI chart ranges take those slight differences in bone structure into account. Someone with a larger frame would be closer 25, someone with a medium frame would be closer to 22, someone with a small frame would be closer to 19. Someone with a BMI of 31, and blaming it on their "frame size" is making excuses, not making a valid comment.

No more so than the person with the small frame that should be 19 but is 25?