Do BMI's seem unrealistic to anyone else?

Not in denial. Mine has me at obese. I am overweight.

Your reply reminds me of when I put on weight and refused to buy bigger jeans because I wasn't a 48 inch waist honest so I kept trying to squeeze into smaller ones. I'm afraid the only person you're fooling is yourself.

A woman i know has a 36 inch waist. is 5'1 and weighs about 140 pounds. her bmi is overweight. why is she overweight and not obese. She looks 30 pounds heavier than I do. She does not exercise. Her body fat is also almost at 50%. But her bmi is just in the overweight catagory. we are in a contest with a few other ladies and we share our stats that is how I know all of this.

You're back to "looks" again. It isn't what someone looks like. It's an equation between height and weight basically. She's over 30 lbs lighter than you and only minimally shorter. Get over what it looks like and your perception of what you look like. You are classed as obese at your height and weight based on BMI. Someone 30 lbs lighter is classed as overweight. If you lose 30 lbs you could be overweight instead of obese.

It is what it is. You can argue for the next ten years that you are the special person who doesn't "look" your version of obese at your weight but it doesn't change the statistics at all. For your sanity I'd suggest you just let it go, carry on doing whatever you're doing and quit trying to justify why you are different than the rest of the world.

To me it is all about the way I look. I hate being classified as obese on paper. It is making it hard for me to get insurance at a reasonable rate. While people who 'look' worse than me but have better numbers (bmi) aren't going to pay the same price. Side by side an insurance agent would classify me as in better health(shape) than say some of my friends. But on paper that same agent would rate me higher, therefore causing me to pay more. My issue is that insurance companies are using bmi to determine fitness and it is not true in all cases. I am overweight. Butmy blood work is really good and my numbers are where they should be. I agree. I'm going to stop beating this dead horse. This is purely financial for me. I'll bow out now.

Not in denial. Mine has me at obese. I am overweight.

Your reply reminds me of when I put on weight and refused to buy bigger jeans because I wasn't a 48 inch waist honest so I kept trying to squeeze into smaller ones. I'm afraid the only person you're fooling is yourself.

My husband borders on morbidly obese but because he can cram himself into 44 jeans by tucking them under his huge gut he thinks that somehow makes him smaller. I have a friend who is my height but a good 40 lbs heavier. I like my jeans a bit loose and she somehow managed to buy the same size in a low rise and wanted to brag how we wore the same size. Mine were loose and she had a 30 lb roll of fat over the top but she was sure we wore the same size!

I think it's a little unrealistic. According to BMI I am really overweight... I'm 6'1 and weigh 190.... yet I have abs....

I think it's a little unrealistic. According to BMI I am really overweight... I'm 6'1 and weigh 190.... yet I have abs....

BMI > 25 is overweight. Your BMI is 25.1

If you look it up in Wikipedia, BMI was never meant to be used as an individual tool but on a population. Also, it is a no brainer, women have less muscle mass and more fat than men and BMI does not use sex in its calculation. Also, if you think about ethnic background, eskimos have a larger fat layer. You can not use BMI on children. I remember there use to tables for small, mid size, and large size frames and male/female weight tables. I'm surprise how popular BMI is and it is due to how easy it is to calculate. If you are concerned about your health, get a blood test.

*snip*

LOL. I was trying to illustrate a point but I'll admit it was rather subtle.

Fortunately I'm not associated with beachbody so I don't need to fill another 25 pages defending my unfounded ridiculous assertion with a bunch of wishful thinking dressed up in sciency sounding language. :happy:

I think I got your point. You believe that people should be more focused on what their bodies can do than how they look or stack up to statistical averages as a way to determine goals.

The problem is that you're conflating two things, health and fitness. There is some overlap there, but they are not the same. People with high levels of fitness can still be at risk for cardiovascular disease if they are obese, and people who meet all the statistical markers for health can still be woefully unfit. I don't think your assertion was ridiculous or unfounded, I think it had major flaws.

My tone was a catty because I'm personally defensive about my fitness level. Put yourself in my position. You to work your *kitten* off to get your BF%, BMI, WHR, WHtR and whathaveyou into healthy ranges but you still can't do basic fitness things like a handstand. You work your *kitten* off even harder to work at being able to do those things, but they are still months or even years in the future. THEN someone comes up like, "if you were at a healthy weight you could do a handstand."

No. No sir. That is not how it works.

Geez. Lighten up.... He wasn't being serious. Your reading wayyyyyy too much into what he was saying because he wasn't saying any of the above. It was a joke. Look at his profile pic..... he's doing a headstand... his ticker says he still has weight to lose. Obviously, he hasn't "arrived" fitnessly. I'm 80lbs overweight and can do a headstand... so is he saying that I'm good now? That I shouldn't lose anymore weight? It was just a joke, man.

A woman i know has a 36 inch waist. is 5'1 and weighs about 140 pounds. her bmi is overweight. why is she overweight and not obese. She looks 30 pounds heavier than I do. She does not exercise. Her body fat is also almost at 50%. But her bmi is just in the overweight catagory. we are in a contest with a few other ladies and we share our stats that is how I know all of this.

You're back to "looks" again. It isn't what someone looks like. It's an equation between height and weight basically. She's over 30 lbs lighter than you and only minimally shorter. Get over what it looks like and your perception of what you look like. You are classed as obese at your height and weight based on BMI. Someone 30 lbs lighter is classed as overweight. If you lose 30 lbs you could be overweight instead of obese.

It is what it is. You can argue for the next ten years that you are the special person who doesn't "look" your version of obese at your weight but it doesn't change the statistics at all. For your sanity I'd suggest you just let it go, carry on doing whatever you're doing and quit trying to justify why you are different than the rest of the world.

To me it is all about the way I look. I hate being classified as obese on paper. It is making it hard for me to get insurance at a reasonable rate. While people who 'look' worse than me but have better numbers (bmi) aren't going to pay the same price. Side by side an insurance agent would classify me as in better health(shape) than say some of my friends. But on paper that same agent would rate me higher, therefore causing me to pay more. My issue is that insurance companies are using bmi to determine fitness and it is not true in all cases. I am overweight. Butmy blood work is really good and my numbers are where they should be. I agree. I'm going to stop beating this dead horse. This is purely financial for me. I'll bow out now.

Overweight and Overfat are slightly different. Ideal body fat for women is between 18-25%. Over 30% body fat is overfat and over 40% body fat is obese by body fat standards. Overweight is very simply a BMI of 25 or above, obese by BMI standards is a BMI of 30 or above.

For me, I'll be overweight by BMI standards until I am 23% body fat. That's not a lot of wiggle room between my ideal weight (and body fat percentage) and the top end of my healthy BMI. I have a friend who is the same height as me with a slimmer build who doesn't work out (so probably less muscle mass) who at my ideal weight would probably be well into the "overfat" zone but still considered a healthy weight.

That doesn't make it any less right for me to get down into the range of healthy BMI. Yeah, it kind of sucks that at a better body composition than others of my height I would still be classified as overweight and that if I gained weight again, by BMI standards I would be classified as "obese" even before I was actually obese by body fat standards. It doesn't change the fact that the "healthy" BMI range is also in my ideal body fat range and that I actually would be healthy at those weights.

If you really think that you aren't obese by body fat standards, go have a body fat test done. Get a DEXA scan or hydrostatic weight test done they cost under $100. You could find out what your lean mass actually is and figure out where your ideal body weight is. You could probably also send the report to the insurance company and get the cheaper rate. A lot of insurance companies will accept those reports in lieu of a simple weight report. Being of better body composition does also lower health risks and even when I was in the military, people could have the fitness test weigh in waived with a body composition test that showed that they were actually healthy.

Right now you are trying to convince a bunch of people on the internet that you aren't obese. You don't have a profile picture up and the one stat that you have given, a 34" waist, puts you well into obese territory. Not only that but you are well out of the range of healthy by waist-height ratio standards which are pretty lax. Even when I was obese, I never had a 34" waist (I'm 5'7''). Right now, I'm overweight and my waist is 27.5."

Hi, I am Obese.

We get it, you have large boobs and are "curvy", you carry more weight although it is well proportioned. It still means you have a higher weight per your height than average.

Hi, I am Obese.

We get it, you have large boobs and are "curvy", you carry more weight although it is well proportioned. It still means you have a higher weight per your height than average.

Why so harsh? I think she looks great. Curves aren't bad.

Here we go with "looks" again. Yes, she looks great, yes she thinks she looks great. It has nothing to do with BMI once again. It's not how you look, it's weight to height ratio. It's really simple math. Not sure why you have such a hard time understanding that. Close your eyes, your BMI is still the same no matter how you LOOK!