BMI....is this an accurate measurement of Obesity?

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autumntia
autumntia Posts: 72 Member
in Chit-Chat
Ok so according to my BMI I am Obese...however to me, I don't feel Obese at all, nor do I look "Obese" I am 5'7 and I wear I size 14. Yes I trying to lose more weight, cause I do need to, however my BMI says that I am Obese. I feel like I am definitely overweight though. Idk, I am not trying to be ridiculous or insensitive at all, I just don't understand how this BMI thing is the indicator of obesity. Also on my scale it tells me my bone mass and my bone mass is a little on the high side (for a woman).

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  • princesslmc2
    princesslmc2 Posts: 264 Member
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    I feel your pain!! I've given up paying attention to my BMI. My body is unique... I am 5'8" and everyone THINKS I wear a size 12 (looks are deceiving!!)... Meanwhile, I currently wear a size 14/16 (and currently weigh 215). I too definitely consider myself overweight... but obese? Not even close. But that's what the BMI thing tells me... Oh well. As long as I'm healthy, that's all I care about.
  • poisongirl6485
    poisongirl6485 Posts: 1,487 Member
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    IMO BMI is not a good way to calculate obesity. It was developed in the 1800s for use in ONE census in Europe. How we adopted it to be this universal determining factor of health is beyond me.
  • Louise12
    Louise12 Posts: 389 Member
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    Hi I am the same height as you ..and at my biggest I was a size 16, at one point my BMI was obese and a nurse told me that i needed to go on a strict diet ...fair enough I was a bit overweight but Obese I think is a bit ridiculous.


    My fiance is 6'5 and very muscly ... his Bmi says that he is obese and for him to get into the healthy BMI section it says he will need to lose a few stone.... which he defintely does not need to do...he will look horrifically thin..and he has a large frame...

    im not sure if Bmi is the most accurate chart to go by ...
  • Fatanorexic
    Fatanorexic Posts: 9
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    No because BMI does not take in your muscle weight which all in all is heavier so weighs more than what fat does so your bmi is likely to be higher if you have more muscle than fat. Good luck x
  • SafariLara
    SafariLara Posts: 172
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    It is most of the time a fairly good indicator of excess fat, but it doesnt account for athletic people, or just different people in general. Accoriding to the BMI chart i'm barely in my healthy range by like 3 lbs, but i still feel way overweight so, I guess alot of that jsut has to do with how you feel about your body. I had a friend for years that weighed like 200 lbs but wore it so well i would have never though of her as more than like 160. Everyone is different, and noone should take the BMI scale as an exact science or religious gospel for body fat, because everyone is different and it is so generalized
  • MichaelPommier
    MichaelPommier Posts: 13
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    BMI is one of the biggest wastes of time. It is based on height and weight alone. It does not take into account muscle mass, which weighs more than fat. Currently I am obese and I don't really need some arbitrary number to tell me so.
  • scaldawg
    scaldawg Posts: 8
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    I dont agree with it at all, I am 5'11 and weigh 206 pounds at last weigh in. Ok so that sounds alot but I am a size 16 (UK) I play basketball at the highest level in both my college and in the country (Ireland) which means I have training 4 times a week and I try to get to the gym as much as possible....
    If I was clinically obese as the BMI says I nearly am (I think Im 29 or something) then I dont think I would be able to do any of that lol!
    I wouldnt pay any attention to it...everyone is different!!!
    x
  • oaraico
    oaraico Posts: 14
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    I THINK WE ALSO HAVE A VERY MEDIA IDEA OF OBESE, WHEN I PICTURE OBESE I IMAGINE THE 600 POUND MAN THAT CANT LEAVE HIS HOUSE. ALTHOUGH I KNOW NOTHING ABOUT HOW BMI IS CREATED WE HAVE ALSO CREATED A VERY VERY NEGATIVE IDEA OF WHAT OBESE MEANS WHEN IN FACT IT JUST MEANS YOUR OVER RECOMMEND WEIGHT.
  • AbbyLu
    AbbyLu Posts: 29
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    I think we as a society use that term very loosly, but what it really means is about 50lbs over weight. Morbidly obese is what we normally see on The Biggest Looser which is anything above 100lbs over weight. MFP's BMI tracker isn't going to be 100% acurate, but it is pretty close. If you want something more acurate, go see your doctor, or stop by your gym's PT station and ask them to calculate it for you.
  • lutzsher
    lutzsher Posts: 1,153 Member
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    Of course you cannot paint everyone with the same brush, however in my case, and everyone that I know, our BMI is pretty accurate. That is why it gives you a "range".
    My healthy weight according to my BMI is a range of 107 to 145 pounds. At 5'4" that is realistic however now that Im over 40 I am shooting for the higher end of that scale, in my 20's I was at the lower end.

    Depending how large or small boned you are and taking into consideration how muscular this can be fairly accurate.

    I started out at 220 pounds, so at my height that was obese for sure! I celebrated the day I crossed over into "overweight", which for me was 174.8 pounds. Anything over about 30 pounds from the highest end of your BMI does cross over into obese as an extra 30 pounds can do alot of damage to your health.
  • whittrusty
    whittrusty Posts: 533 Member
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    I wouldn't worry about BMI so much as your body fat percentage. If you have a way to get it taken, maybe that would give you a better idea.

    For instance. I weigh 201 lbs and I have 29.8% body fat. By my BMI, I'm obese and I won't qualify for overweight until I lose another 30 lbs. But my body fat percentage in in the overweight category. I'm very muscular and I don't look like a typical woman who weighs 200 lbs. As an example, I have a friend who weighs 150 lbs and she is also 29.8% body fat. Her BMI is MUCH lower than mine, almost healthy. But our body fat percentages show that I just have a lot more muscle than she does, as we are both overweight according to body fat percentage.

    Hope this helps. I wouldn't concentrate on it. It's just a quick and easy way to see if you have a healthy weight or not. Quick and easy isn't usually all that accurate for everyone.
  • erlpet
    erlpet Posts: 4 Member
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    Agreed, currently i weigh the same as I did a couple of years ago, when i started a loosing weight the first time. Since then I've added it back, but have kept training strength, and is way more active now then i was back then. BMI is the same, but even though I'm overweight again, I look better then the last time the scale showed the same.
  • autumntia
    autumntia Posts: 72 Member
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    Oh ok, thanks guys cause I think my BMI right now is 32 and it says I need to lose another 50 pounds on top of the 15 I just lost. I am already feeling and looking better and I planned on losing another 20-25 pounds and that's it, not 50! I would look really really thin. I want to be fit, lean and healthy not super thin. I have a pretty decent build and I am not overly concerned with being skinny. I just want to be healthier and feel good in my own skin. I currently weight 219 and I am 5'7 (yes that is too much but I would be perfectly fine weighing 190 at 5'7...Cause I know that I will look healthy and fine.
  • karenjoy
    karenjoy Posts: 1,840 Member
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    I work in School Nursing and this is THE most emotive thing we deal with, we say at work that obesity is the new cancer, in that in the past people would not talk about it and called it all sorts of names and the actual word was like a swear word, now it is obesity, I see children all the time who are obese, they are clearly fat and not just overweight, we NEVER EVER EVER use the 'O' word or say fat, but sometimes if you are looking at a 4 year old who should weigh about 3 stone (45lb ish) and they weigh 5 stone (70lb) (this is actually true) and their parent says they are just a bit overweight or solid and gets very angry at you when you offer a dietitian appointment or healthy eating advice etc (also NEVER EVER in front of the child) But these parents are almost always (I want to say 100% but there are exceptions) overweight themselves and they have got a skewed view on what 'normal' is. I would say that some people have muscle mass because they work out, are fit etc but to be honest from my experience BMI is a reasonable indicator (exceptions always happen) of if you need to look at your weight with an HONEST eye.

    At the other end of the scale, we also see children who's parents think they are too thin, rarely they are right, but usually the child is totally in proportion for it's height and we have become so used to people we see around us being overweight that people who are within the correct weight range for their height are often thought of as being too thin

    There is a two percentile line either side of the line you are on that does not cause issues, a child needs to be 2 or more lines apart for us to even mention it to parents, although I am not sure about how the adult charts work,

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