BMI vs SMBI

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  • TR0berts
    TR0berts Posts: 7,739 Member
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    It's certainly interesting. While I, personally, didn't have any issue with the feedback, I can see where it might mislead others. In my case, it said I was overweight (which I am), but said that that might be due to higher muscle mass than average for my age/height/weight (which is probably true,although I could probably do with less body fat, too). I could easily see where someone might just dismiss being overweight because (s)he thought (s)he had more muscle mass than (s)he really does.
  • coleg04
    coleg04 Posts: 126 Member
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    rybo wrote: »
    Interesting. Seemed a bit more reasonable than the regular BMI.

    Agreed
  • angmarie28
    angmarie28 Posts: 2,802 Member
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    they calculate the exact same for me 25.8, except BMI said im over weight, and SBMI says im my ideal weight and it will not benefit me at all to lose weight, hmmmm
  • not_a_runner
    not_a_runner Posts: 1,343 Member
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    I got the same number as the standard BMI calculator, and didn't find any of the additional information to be helpful.
    I entered my goal weight as 35 lbs below my current weight (gw still considered in the "overweight" category) and was rather surprised by the recommendation-
    "The best you can do is eat healthy food and increase your fitness. This will boost your health, whatever the case. If you reach your weight target, all the better.
    Your target weight of 150 pounds
    Your weight target is fine but rather ambitious. Instead of reaching it all at once, you could try first to lose 18 pounds down to 167 pounds as an intermediate target."
    I didn't think losing 35 lbs and putting myself in the over weight category was all that ambitious. I can see where they're coming from, perhaps trying to help those with larger weight loss goals from getting overwhelmed. Kind of came off as discouraging to me though. I think there are much better sources out there for those who have no idea where to start.
  • mzdocb325
    mzdocb325 Posts: 4 Member
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    The SBMI was based on a study from Lancet, the leading medical journal in the UK. They studied over 10,000 ppl. They looked at height and weight as well as sex. The huge difference from BMI IS THEY THEN CORRELATED THE SBMI TO THE STATE OF HEALTH OF THE INDIVIDUALS. In other words, at what weight did it adversely affect someone's health with respect to hypertension, cardiac disease, stroke, diabetes and any other morbidity (disease). One thing is that as you age, most ppl put on some weight ( who weighs at 50 what they weighed at 18?) BUT IT HAS NO ADVERSE EFFECT ON YOUR HEALTH!! Most of you are probably young, so the BMI and SBMI won't be that different. But as you age the range of a healthy weght widens. The BMI does not take into account what is actually a healthy weight. It does not consider fat vs muscle. An athlete that weighs more due to more muscle and less fat will have a higher/ less healthy BMI. The BMI was invented in the 1830's, NOT a typo, 1830's! So there is some room for improvement, wouldn't ya think? So others also look at waist to hip ratio, % body fat etc. The SBMI is a good study that attempts to ask the question of what is a healthy weight.
  • shandy82165
    shandy82165 Posts: 184 Member
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    not_a_runner wrote: »
    I got the same number as the standard BMI calculator, and didn't find any of the additional information to be helpful.
    I entered my goal weight as 35 lbs below my current weight (gw still considered in the "overweight" category) and was rather surprised by the recommendation-
    "The best you can do is eat healthy food and increase your fitness. This will boost your health, whatever the case. If you reach your weight target, all the better.
    Your target weight of 150 pounds
    Your weight target is fine but rather ambitious. Instead of reaching it all at once, you could try first to lose 18 pounds down to 167 pounds as an intermediate target."
    I didn't think losing 35 lbs and putting myself in the over weight category was all that ambitious. I can see where they're coming from, perhaps trying to help those with larger weight loss goals from getting overwhelmed. Kind of came off as discouraging to me though. I think there are much better sources out there for those who have no idea where to start.

    This is the what I got too. In fact, my weight and goal was exactly the same as yours. It didn't ask any questions to differentiate between short term and long term goals, so it's a little misleading.
  • PAV8888
    PAV8888 Posts: 13,775 Member
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    It's a tool which I very much and quite often use and like a couple of other sites tries to deal with some of the limitations of simple BMI.

    No single figure in isolation gives all the answers. This doesn't mean that you should disregard the information provided by long used metrics without fully understanding why they do not apply to you.

    Hint: many but not all of the people who think that BMI doesn't apply to them think so in error.

    In any case the sbmi website just points out the fact that in the range of low overweight there appear to be less adverse health effects than previously thought.

    The blurbs the site provides are what they have come up with and should be taken with as much offer grain of salt as anything else you read on the internet

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