BMI vs. WtHR

vinerie
vinerie Posts: 234 Member
edited November 20 in Health and Weight Loss
That is Body Mass Index vs, Weight to Height Ratio

I am six feet and a half inch and I weigh 191.2. That puts my BMI at 25.6, which is "overweight" by widely accepted standards. My waist is 33 inches, which puts my WTHR at 45.52 and "slim and healthy" by those standards.

I carry my weight in my lower half, thus accounting for the relatively slim waist.

The reason I'm posting is I'm trying to figure out a good goal weight. But it's unclear what that is, with one measure saying I'm overweight and another saying I'm slim and healthy. (Perhaps I should just go by the latter and make myself feel better.) Anyone else in this situation? At minimum I think I want to get in that healthy BMI range, which is only exactly 3.3 pounds away anyways.

In any event, it's funny looking at these different metrics for health.

Replies

  • harmar21
    harmar21 Posts: 215 Member
    How about just looking yourself in the mirror. And grabbing your skin to see if there is a lot of excess flab. If excess flab keep cutting.

    Do you do weightlifting? If yes then you may be fine. if no, then you probably still have more to go.
  • vinerie
    vinerie Posts: 234 Member
    edited June 2015
    Th
  • senecarr
    senecarr Posts: 5,377 Member
    Where are you getting the Weight to Height Ratio guidelines from? You also say waist size later. Do you actually mean waist to hips ratio when you say WtHR?
  • wkwebby
    wkwebby Posts: 807 Member
    WtHR is a better indicator of illnesses born from being overweight. The studies show that if you carry your weight in the bottom half (pear shaped as opposed to apple shaped with a big gut, and no butt), you are less likely to have metabolic syndrome. Take both of them with a grain of salt. BMI numbers don't work for anyone but the average person with some muscle tone and not particularly athletic.

    Take a caliper measurement for body fat percentage and it will be a better indicator of your overall health. Females should be around 12-15% (for athletes, you risk losing your period at this low percentage) to 20-25% (for non-athletes).
  • Unknown
    Unknown
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  • andrean930
    andrean930 Posts: 2 Member
    sunn_lighter wrote: »
    I think BMI plus Body Fat % are a good metric for health. No one number tells you how healthy you are, though.

    Agreed! BMI alone is a terrible metric for how healthy you are. I prefer following my Body Fat% and my weight since I can gauge whether my weight gain is from an increase in body fat and vice versa.
  • BennyCH
    BennyCH Posts: 73 Member
    both are useless and shouldn't be used
  • senecarr
    senecarr Posts: 5,377 Member
    wkwebby wrote: »
    WtHR is a better indicator of illnesses born from being overweight. The studies show that if you carry your weight in the bottom half (pear shaped as opposed to apple shaped with a big gut, and no butt), you are less likely to have metabolic syndrome. Take both of them with a grain of salt. BMI numbers don't work for anyone but the average person with some muscle tone and not particularly athletic.

    Take a caliper measurement for body fat percentage and it will be a better indicator of your overall health. Females should be around 12-15% (for athletes, you risk losing your period at this low percentage) to 20-25% (for non-athletes).

    When compared to body fat percentage, BMI is actually more likely to under-rate people as fat than affect the small portion of the population that is at a healthy fat range but carrying extra muscle.
  • senecarr
    senecarr Posts: 5,377 Member
    BennyCH wrote: »
    both are useless and shouldn't be used
    Bold statement is excessively bold.
  • yopeeps025
    yopeeps025 Posts: 8,680 Member
    senecarr wrote: »
    Where are you getting the Weight to Height Ratio guidelines from? You also say waist size later. Do you actually mean waist to hips ratio when you say WtHR?

    BMI is solely base on weight and height. I think OP need to recheck what they are talking about.
  • jemhh
    jemhh Posts: 14,261 Member
    harmar21 wrote: »
    How about just looking yourself in the mirror. And grabbing your skin to see if there is a lot of excess flab. If excess flab keep cutting.

    Do you do weightlifting? If yes then you may be fine. if no, then you probably still have more to go.

    I agree with the bold. Once you get into a healthy range, I think it's best to focus on what you see in the mirror rather than what you see on the scale.
  • senecarr
    senecarr Posts: 5,377 Member
    yopeeps025 wrote: »
    senecarr wrote: »
    Where are you getting the Weight to Height Ratio guidelines from? You also say waist size later. Do you actually mean waist to hips ratio when you say WtHR?

    BMI is solely base on weight and height. I think OP need to recheck what they are talking about.
    Yeah, that is what I couldn't follow. It sounded like she had two different figures that use weight in comparison to height at first. Then she mentions waist, which sounds like the usual use of WtHR for Waist to Hips Ratio, but 45.52 wouldn't be a waist to hips ratio (maybe 45.52% would be, but that seems really small and involve ~72.5" hips).
  • jemhh
    jemhh Posts: 14,261 Member
    I think she's talking about this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waist-to-height_ratio

    Strangely, that seems to be abbreviated WHtR, not WtHR.
  • Mr_Knight
    Mr_Knight Posts: 9,532 Member
    vinerie wrote: »
    The reason I'm posting is I'm trying to figure out a good goal weight.

    Yeah, always a good question. My suggestion is to figure out something you really want to do, then figure out the "right" weight for that something, et voilà, there's your goal.

  • harmar21
    harmar21 Posts: 215 Member
    Im struggling to figure out a goal weight as well . I hear everything from 155lbs to 195lbs... which is a pretty big range hah. But truth is I am just not going to know until I am there or almost there... And sitting at 260lbs I still have a big gut, and big thighs, Originally I had a goal of 205lbs.. but then realized that was still too high. Then lowered to 195.. But still think it will be too high.. Right now I have my goal weight listed as 175 with a +- of 10lbs.
  • senecarr
    senecarr Posts: 5,377 Member
    jemhh wrote: »
    I think she's talking about this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waist-to-height_ratio

    Strangely, that seems to be abbreviated WHtR, not WtHR.

    Ok, that looks like the one she's referencing.
    It also looks like it is well correlated with some health markers, but fails to predict others like diabetes. The chart for it in Wikipedia puts 45.52 at Healthy, not healthy slim though. Then again, I'm not sure about it putting Kate Moss as a figure for healthy slim. The whole article seems oddly interested in celebrities.
  • discretekim
    discretekim Posts: 314 Member
    edited June 2015
    I'm in your same boat bmi just over 25 whr of .72. I am aiming to get my bmi to 23-24. Although I look fine I'm not my best. I don't think bmi is a hard cutoff like one pound could seriously be the difference between healthy or unhealthy. But keeping it within that range is ideal. I actually recently read the lower end of the healthy range is generally considered healthier, but there are contradictions to that because I've seen other things say that being about 20 pounds over weight has the lowest mortality. I think the whr tells you you are probably okay. But you may want to keep working at it.

    Edit oh missed that it is waist to height. Still in the same boat though, .444. I've heard waist to hip is better but they are all just estimations. Ideally get to a place where you are normal for all of them.
  • DeguelloTex
    DeguelloTex Posts: 6,652 Member
    The "tall BMI" puts OP in the healthy range.
  • Need2Exerc1se
    Need2Exerc1se Posts: 13,575 Member
    wkwebby wrote: »
    WtHR is a better indicator of illnesses born from being overweight. The studies show that if you carry your weight in the bottom half (pear shaped as opposed to apple shaped with a big gut, and no butt), you are less likely to have metabolic syndrome. Take both of them with a grain of salt. BMI numbers don't work for anyone but the average person with some muscle tone and not particularly athletic.

    Take a caliper measurement for body fat percentage and it will be a better indicator of your overall health. Females should be around 12-15% (for athletes, you risk losing your period at this low percentage) to 20-25% (for non-athletes).

    I have also read that WtHR is a better indicator of health risk than BMI. But BMI is the common standard because most doctors don't measure waist.

    I disagree that using calipers to measure your own BF% is a good idea. If you aren't trained your readings will likely be far from accurate.
  • vinerie
    vinerie Posts: 234 Member
    Oops, yes to the above-posters. It should say WAIST to height ratio. #editing
  • geministyle
    geministyle Posts: 30 Member
    I think BMI is bullsh*t if you happen to carry a decent amount of muscle.

    I'm 5'4" and 165 pounds but 117 pounds of that is lean mass. I'm at 29% bodyfat, which is average for a female (yes it's higher than I like, but I'm working on it). However, my BMI is 28.3 which is considered "overweight".

    Even at 152 pounds which would put me in the "fitness" range of bodyfat, I'm still "overweight" per the BMI calculators.

    So yes, I would go by bodyfat percentage (if you can get an accurate measurement) or as others have suggested, how you look and feel. ;)

    http://www.builtlean.com/2010/08/03/ideal-body-fat-percentage-chart/
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