Is every single body in the world intended to be within the so-called healthy BMI range?

tomteboda wrote: »

The point. Someone ages ago said it was impossible that bones had different weights, much less 8 lbs( their arbitrary number). I am demonstrating that this is just not true, that skeletal differences are real and significant.

People keep trying to draw extra conclusions from this that I am not making. This is irritating me to no small extent.

Where was it said it was impossible that bones didn't have different weights.

Where was it said that the bones didn't account for some difference in bmi.

And the 8lbs came from a post where the individual said they couldn't find the study.

Hmm, cross purposes. My figures are correct, as are the ones you quoted.

37.4% of men were mischaracterized across categories and 26.1% of women.

It looked like you were talking about just obese and overweight BMI because you bolded the first quote I quoted.

No hard feelings.


Not directed at you:

So, to sum up the study, surprise, surprise, some people were above average, some people were below average, and one method of estimating is a bit different to another method of estimating. Who'd have thought?

stevencloser wrote: »

accidentalpancake wrote: »

This is me at 6lbs OVER the very tip top of my "healthy" BMI range:


Being overly muscular is not a prerequisite for there being variations in the applicability of BMI. At the outer edges of height distribution, there are similar, documented issues to those that are constantly pointed out for athletes and bodybuilders.

You are by no means fat, but there's still weight you could safely lose if you wished so, putting you back into the healthy BMI range.
Besides, at a measly 6 pounds over it I wouldn't sweat it to begin with.

I completely agree, but the point is that the ranges are inadequate the further away from "average" height you get. While I could lose a couple of pounds and still be fine, the fact is that being categorized as "overweight" at 6'3" and 205lbs with a healthy BF% is laughable.

I don't sweat it at all. BMI is a relic that needs to be retired. The issue is that it has real consequences for people via health insurance premiums. If my provider bought into the nonsense, I'd either be charged more, or fail to receive a "discount" due to being overweight, which I clearly am not by any reasonable standard.

accidentalpancake wrote: »

stevencloser wrote: »

accidentalpancake wrote: »

This is me at 6lbs OVER the very tip top of my "healthy" BMI range:


Being overly muscular is not a prerequisite for there being variations in the applicability of BMI. At the outer edges of height distribution, there are similar, documented issues to those that are constantly pointed out for athletes and bodybuilders.

You are by no means fat, but there's still weight you could safely lose if you wished so, putting you back into the healthy BMI range.
Besides, at a measly 6 pounds over it I wouldn't sweat it to begin with.

I completely agree, but the point is that the ranges are inadequate the further away from "average" height you get. While I could lose a couple of pounds and still be fine, the fact is that being categorized as "overweight" at 6'3" and 205lbs with a healthy BF% is laughable.

I don't sweat it at all. BMI is a relic that needs to be retired. The issue is that it has real consequences for people via health insurance premiums. If my provider bought into the nonsense, I'd either be charged more, or fail to receive a "discount" due to being overweight, which I clearly am not by any reasonable standard.

It's absolutely correct that it's more inaccurate at taller and shorter heights (in different directions), as well as for non-whites (in different directions), so on. I don't think that means it is "a relic that needs to be retired." I think it means that someone insisting that BMI is the be-all, end-all of what's a proper weight is being ignorant, that people should realize these are ranges and there's not like there's some bright line between being 24.5 BMI (great!) and 25.5 BMI (fat, terrible!). I also think acknowledging that for the most part BMI is an easy proxy for what we can better determine from an accurate BF% and the latter is more significant also is important.

I think in many ways this thread is an example of miscommunication, as I am reading (perhaps wrongly) a few participants to be insisting that one should ALWAYS strive to be below 25 BMI and not being so is inherently bad, no matter what, and I think those people are (IMO wrongly) reading everyone saying it's more nuanced to be making excuses for their own weights. Most people seem to fall more in the middle anyway.

I agree that to the extent someone gets charged more for insurance solely for being a 25 or over BMI, even without being overfat by BF%, that's wrong. I do wonder (don't know) how common that is. As I keep saying, my own insurance has never included differential pricing, but it's method promoted for determining if you are a healthy weight includes BMI + waist measure, and if the waist measure is fine the overweight BMI is not considered a problem. Most wellness programs I've heard about allow reduced pricing based on a number of different measures, not merely BMI. But I've never seen stats and agree that anything based solely on BMI should not be (unless it kicked in at 30 and allowed you to show a BF measure to challenge it through some system).

I don't really understand how anyone can claim they are incorrectly categorized or not when the definitions have no meaning besides the one defined by the BMI calculator. So, as an individual, if your BMI is in the "overweight" range, it means, categorically, that you are carrying a certain amount of weight per square inch of your body. It does not say whether that weight is fat, muscle, bone, or boob (i.e. fat that you can't necessarily control with diet). It's an indicator of increased risk of certain health populations for a population, but in an individual not necessarily, that's how statistics work.

The words happen to be emotionally loaded, so people take umbrage at them, but they don't actually mean anything objective. They make people feel like they can visually diagnose the categories. Would I, personally, be more healthy at a lower weight? Maybe, maybe not. That's not what it's for. I'm BMI obese right now. I'm extremely short, which is another population that the BMI doesn't work great for, but I wear a size 8 pants and a size small shirt. My waist is 28 inches. All of my numbers are perfect and I've never had a weight related health issue (I'm currently at 155 and I'm 4'11", for context). Am I "incorrectly categorized"? Well, that's impossible to define. I don't like the label or feel like I fit into that population (though I admit certainly that I AM overweight/overfat). At my thinnest I was 125 which is RIGHT on the cusp, so the days I woke up 127 I was technically overweight, but I was wearing a size 2/XS with a 26 inch waist. It just doesn't work for individuals. If the labels were below average, average, above average, and well above average would people take so much personal offense at them?

BTW, my boyfriend is also overweight, at 5'7" and 180 pounds. He is very muscular, has <10% body fat, and has a visible 6 pack. He's not an OMG body builder, just a reasonably fit/athletic guy. So, us shorties get shafted, but just because the label puts us in a group that is more likely to have health problems doesn't have any relationship to us as individuals.

czmiles926 wrote: »

My bmi has always hovered on the border between underweight and normal. At the moment my bmi is 17.3. People seem to arguing that there's nothing wrong with being a little over the healthy bmi range so by that logic there's nothing wrong with being a little under the healthy bmi range.

As a female you're at much greater health risk being underweight/underfat than overweight/overfat. But just because you're underweight doesn't necessarily that you're underfat.

firef1y72 wrote: »

I'm overweight, I know I'm overweight, not by a lot compared with where I started but according to the NHS BMI calculator I need to lose another 10lb to get in to the healthy weight category.

But the rest of the world struggles to believe that I need to lose that weight, including the nurse I saw for my asthma check last week who described me as athletic. I do have a lot of excess skin, no idea how much but it's got to be more than 5lb worth and I do appear to have more than average muscle mass, although that is just by appearance and the fact that I do/have work/ed hard to maintain my muscle mass and grow a little while losing some fat in the last few months.

According to my scales (which I know are not accurate) my bf is <30% and steadily dropping (I believe the scales more that its dropping as I'm losing inches without losing pounds) and my health markers such as resting heart rate (40) and blood pressure (105/60) are considered pretty good. Oh and I'm a UK 10/12 which is another reason some people don't believe I'm overweight.

I think that you have done tremendous in your efforts and the 10lbs to get you out of the overweight category is something I am sure you will accomplish.

But thinking about it this way too...if you were 10lbs underweight it would matter...10lbs is actually quite a bit when you put it in perspective.



and I wouldn't assume you are building much muscle unless you are doing heavy weights and eating enough...and since you are losing weight chances are no you are not gainign muscle.

lemurcat12 wrote: »

firef1y72 wrote: »

I'm overweight, I know I'm overweight, not by a lot compared with where I started but according to the NHS BMI calculator I need to lose another 10lb to get in to the healthy weight category.

But the rest of the world struggles to believe that I need to lose that weight, including the nurse I saw for my asthma check last week who described me as athletic. I do have a lot of excess skin, no idea how much but it's got to be more than 5lb worth and I do appear to have more than average muscle mass, although that is just by appearance and the fact that I do/have work/ed hard to maintain my muscle mass and grow a little while losing some fat in the last few months.

According to my scales (which I know are not accurate) my bf is <30% and steadily dropping (I believe the scales more that its dropping as I'm losing inches without losing pounds) and my health markers such as resting heart rate (40) and blood pressure (105/60) are considered pretty good. Oh and I'm a UK 10/12 which is another reason some people don't believe I'm overweight.

Does it bother you that other people don't think you need to lose weight? Do you question whether you should?

My take on this is that probably everyone COULD be within the healthy weight zone as currently defined (which is hardly set in stone or not open to debate, as it's about risks and exactly where a particular individual has the least risk will be variable and depend on other things). The better question is if everyone SHOULD or NEEDS TO be in the healthy weight zone. Last time I went to the doctor when overweight I was similar to you -- not very overweight, BMI of 26, in great shape (I was running and doing other exercise a lot, training for a multi-day biking event and half marathons, doing strength training), and had great test results (my test results were actually fine when I was fat too, but they were better). My doctor said "you are technically overweight but not by much, and obviously very fit and in good health, it's probably nothing to worry about." (This contrasts with when I went to the doctor when obese and even though my tests were fine she told me I should lose weight.)

I told her I knew I was a little overweight and planning to lose more. She asked me what my goal was, and I said 120 (which is about BMI 21), and she said "that's great" and asked me some questions about diet (I assume to make sure I was not overdoing it or developing issues or just that I had a healthy diet, beats me) and ended up seeming happy. We also talked about MFP a bit, since I told her I'd used it and she approved.

Anyway, I don't really think that having a stable weight of around 26 BMI is something to worry about if one is healthy and fit and so on, although on average risks might be less for people with BMI 22. For me, the issue is that my weight is no more stable at 26 than 21-22, and I have vanity and athletic reasons for preferring to be 120 vs. 145. But at 145 plenty of people would say I don't NEED to lose weight and that's true, although it's still valid for me to think I want to or even that I should.

Agreed...

my goal was 165...that put me at 26 BMI too...cause I thought I couldn't get lower...

when I got there I didn't look like I was overweight either...until I got naked and there was a tire around my middle...

so I got down to 155...then 145 and 145 (at my height) is 24...I give myself a range...140-150

I could go lower but eh...husband prefers me that way and I am good with that too.

I think too at some point we as a society are biased and don't really know what "healthy" looks like any more...sometimes because we are overweight and if we tell someone else they are we have to admit it about ourselves or that the norm is now bigger...

who knows.

lemurcat12 wrote: »

Does it bother you that other people don't think you need to lose weight? Do you question whether you should?

I haven't been this size (10/12) in around 9years and last time I was I was around a stone lighter, so I do sometimes wonder if I should really be trying to lose or should concentrate on being happy in my own skin and my fitness goals and if any more weight drops off then that'd be a bonus. But it does get to me a bit when people say that I'm tiny when I still see myself as I was 1 or even 2 years ago.

My take on this is that probably everyone COULD be within the healthy weight zone as currently defined (which is hardly set in stone or not open to debate, as it's about risks and exactly where a particular individual has the least risk will be variable and depend on other things). The better question is if everyone SHOULD or NEEDS TO be in the healthy weight zone. Last time I went to the doctor when overweight I was similar to you -- not very overweight, BMI of 26, in great shape (I was running and doing other exercise a lot, training for a multi-day biking event and half marathons, doing strength training), and had great test results (my test results were actually fine when I was fat too, but they were better). My doctor said "you are technically overweight but not by much, and obviously very fit and in good health, it's probably nothing to worry about." (This contrasts with when I went to the doctor when obese and even though my tests were fine she told me I should lose weight.)

The nurse was pretty much the same with me last week, never been described as athletic before even when I was a "healthy" weight. I run, weight train and really enjoy high intensity classes and PT sessions.

I told her I knew I was a little overweight and planning to lose more. She asked me what my goal was, and I said 120 (which is about BMI 21), and she said "that's great" and asked me some questions about diet (I assume to make sure I was not overdoing it or developing issues or just that I had a healthy diet, beats me) and ended up seeming happy. We also talked about MFP a bit, since I told her I'd used it and she approved.

Anyway, I don't really think that having a stable weight of around 26 BMI is something to worry about if one is healthy and fit and so on, although on average risks might be less for people with BMI 22. For me, the issue is that my weight is no more stable at 26 than 21-22, and I have vanity and athletic reasons for preferring to be 120 vs. 145. But at 145 plenty of people would say I don't NEED to lose weight and that's true, although it's still valid for me to think I want to or even that I should.

I've managed to keep my weight stable for 3 months, which isn't long in the scheme of things but has been an education in itself. Yes I would like to get down to around 134lb (which is a stone away) and as things stand the plan is to go back in to weight loss mode, working with my PT for around 3 months in the new year and see where I am after that, hopefully at the 134lb and ready to maintain again for a while

NO. BMI was actually never intended to be applied to individuals. It was used to for population comparison.
Ever visit China? low wages and high process for anything but rice and vegetables makes for generally much thinner, bordering on anorexic population. More so in rural China than in the cities.
Imagine how much less interesting personal sports would be if all players had to be in the normal or lower BMI range. Most are overweight or obese by BMI. LINEMEN are morbidly obese per BMI.

fishgutzy wrote: »

NO. BMI was actually never intended to be applied to individuals. It was used to for population comparison.
Ever visit China? low wages and high process for anything but rice and vegetables makes for generally much thinner, bordering on anorexic population. More so in rural China than in the cities.
Imagine how much less interesting personal sports would be if all players had to be in the normal or lower BMI range. Most are overweight or obese by BMI. LINEMEN are morbidly obese per BMI.

It would be like it already is in cycling, swimming, and basketball.

NorthCascades wrote: »

fishgutzy wrote: »

NO. BMI was actually never intended to be applied to individuals. It was used to for population comparison.
Ever visit China? low wages and high process for anything but rice and vegetables makes for generally much thinner, bordering on anorexic population. More so in rural China than in the cities.
Imagine how much less interesting personal sports would be if all players had to be in the normal or lower BMI range. Most are overweight or obese by BMI. LINEMEN are morbidly obese per BMI.

It would be like it already is in cycling, swimming, and basketball.

Yes, NFL linemen are probably morbidly obese by BMI... and they're still probably not super healthy, either... Kind of brings up a chicken versus the egg debate--are they large because they're linemen, or did they become linemen because they're large? It's not like most ex-linemen are aging gracefully...