Should you use your BMI to measure your health?

rebecca916
rebecca916 Posts: 45
edited September 24 in Health and Weight Loss
I am a 19 year old woman and 5'1 tall.
Unfortunately, I gained the "freshman 15" during my first few semesters of college. Right now I weigh 126.4 pounds. When I started my myfitnesspal journey in the middle of february, I weighed in at 132.4. So I have made some great progress since then. I was just wondering if your BMI is an accurate way to measure your health. Is there a better test/assessment to find out your ideal weight? My BMI says I should weigh 108-129 pounds. So I'm in the normal range, but close to the overweight category. I was just wondering if I am healthy the way I am, or if I should lose five more pounds. Can someone help me please?

Replies

  • Lyadeia
    Lyadeia Posts: 4,603 Member
    Go by how you look and how you feel. BMI is an arbirtrary number used to help guage success, but it is in no way an absolute. There are lots of people, body builders in particular, you are quite healthy and normal...but test OBESE in BMI scales and have even been denied insurance because of it.
  • xraychick77
    xraychick77 Posts: 1,775 Member
    BMI is good as an initial gauge. For me personally I go on body fat %. For females it should be around 20-25% range.
  • AdrianCountsToo
    AdrianCountsToo Posts: 20
    You should definitely just go by how you feel, I think if you're anywhere in the healthy range, you're good :)

    At some point, you gotta say "How skinny do I really want to be????"

    Too skinny is not good, that's for sure.
  • Luckymam
    Luckymam Posts: 300
    Go by how you look and how you feel. BMI is an arbirtrary number used to help guage success, but it is in no way an absolute. There are lots of people, body builders in particular, you are quite healthy and normal...but test OBESE in BMI scales and have even been denied insurance because of it.

    Totally agree. And the same goes for weight and dress size. Just use them as rough guides. Everyone is different. For example, a body builder would test as overweight if he went by BMI and weight alone. If you feel fit, healthy, happy, and your clothes fit nicely then you're fine!
  • k2charmed4u
    k2charmed4u Posts: 282
    I personally wouldn't use the BMI scale religiously just a guide. I'm 23yrs old and currently weigh 15st 8lbs or 218lbs (used to be 272lbs) and i'm 5'11. According to the chart i should weigh approx 10st 4-8lbs now with my bone struture (broad shoulders-wide hips) i'd luck severly anorexic. BMI does not consider your bone structure and generalises everyone into one catergory which is impossible. I'm aiming for 12st 10lbs to bring myself into a healthy weight and see how I feel. I recommed you do the same get to your target weight and see how you feel. Are you happy? Feel healthy? Confident? If you are that's all you need :) If you don't then lose a little more :) Good luck. xx
  • tatiana_13
    tatiana_13 Posts: 325
    BMI was never intended to tell individuals what they should weigh...it was intended to measure population health. So its really good at looking at averages...not so good at tell Mary Jo what she should weigh. So its a good rough guideline, but not a target. My BMI range goes from 95 to 125. And even though everyone likes to give the example of very muscular people...its also true that most of us aren't body builders :wink: ....but I'll just speak for myself. I'm no body builder...at 4'11"...sedentary except for my 30-40 minutes of contrived exercise...I probably don't need to weigh 125 pounds. I could be wrong...but if I weighed 125 lbs, its probably not going to be muscle...

    I think, you'll know when you get there. We like to measure and prod, and be really scientific, but really...look in the mirror. Take a picture of yourself. Put on some nicely fitting clothes...they'll tell you whether you're at a good weight or not. My original goal was 125. And I was really happy to get there. But after a while I thought, hmmm, that pot belly is a little large. And shot for a little lower. On the flip side, I got down to 103 last summer--took a look in the mirror and thought...okay, great weight when I was in high school, but this is a little too low at my current age (as well as unsustainable...thus, I'm back at it). So, its great to use outside charts to give you some general rules of thumb, but only your own eyes will tell you what looks good and what feels good.
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