BMI (Body Mass Index)
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Assuming you are a Brit like me from your use of stones it's worth reading the NHS take on the use of BMI as it's very sensible.
"As well as measuring your BMI, healthcare professionals may take other factors into account when assessing if you're a healthy weight."
Personal beliefs - that there are some genuine outliers is used as an excuse by far too many fat blokes to justify why it doesn't apply to them. For the majority of guys who aren't young and haven't put serious and prolonged effort into training it's a good guideline. Ordinary people pointing out for example that the England rugby team are all outliers are missing the point. Elite athletes in a power sport are not your average guy in the gym or street.
How it's applied to me - with a stocky build the my best weight would tend to be higher up the BMI range compared to someone who is "leggy" and with a slight build. When I was young and carried more muscle mass my best weight was about 7lbs into the overweight category. Now I'm an old fart who exercises more than ever the top end of the BMI normal range suits me best.
Thanks mate.
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Your current BMI is defined as obese. That’s a fact, not an opinion.
Many people claim that BMI does not describe their bodies or health risks accurately, but BMI is a decent metric for the vast majority of the population, unless one is perhaps a highly trained bodybuilder or similar.
Your own personal health risks are best discussed with your doctor.
BMI does have a significant racial bias, so it's not just bodybuilders. For a good chunk of people who aren't white, the BMI is not an accurate depiction of health. I don't know anything about the OP, but I think that is an important piece of information to consider for anyone on these forums.
The BMI was not created by a scientist, so it's important not to hold it as science. I agree, discussing with a doctor is more important -- but I just wanted to jump in because it's important to not erase ethnic and racial backgrounds in this discussion and making a generalization based on a mathematical equation that takes into account white people only.
To the OP, I would focus on body fat %, rather than BMI.
Care to elaborate? As far as I know, the issue with BMI and race is that non-white people of a normal BMI are more likely to be at risk for health issues than white people. So the bias goes in the opposite direction than what you imply. I don't know of any research that says that overweight/obese non-white people are better off than white people of a similar BMI, so if you have, please share.
https://www.newsweek.com/2017/05/19/obesity-childhood-obesity-body-mass-index-bmi-weight-weight-gain-health-595625.html
I don't claim to be a scientist either, so there might be something I'm missing, but my understanding is that while you are correct that non-white people of a "normal" BMI are more likely to be at risk for health issues than white people, it calls into question the accuracy of what "normal" looks like and centers the concept of normal = healthy around the experiences of white individuals. It's a problematic scale for a lot of reasons, but especially if we are using the BMI scale as an indicator of health because it's just simply not accurate for all kinds of people.
Say one's BMI comes up as obese -- what does that mean, beyond a descriptor? What are the implications? And if we're saying the implication of an obese BMI is poorer health, that's not always entirely true. Same with the implications of a normal BMI -- what are the implications? Health? Not necessarily. It's a one size fits all tool that doesn't really take into account a lot of factors, including body comp and genetics.
Again, not a scientist, just my interpretation of what I've read. I just think it's interesting we have these scales of descriptors that don't really mean much when it comes to reflecting true health and vitality but we treat them as gospel.
BMI is a risk assessment tool...it is not an indicator of healthy or unhealthy...it is used to assess potential risk. Somebody who is classified as obese may be overall healthy...but that BMI puts them at higher risk for a myriad of diseases even if they are currently fine.9 -
Damn mine comes in at 41. Don’t even want to know what that means.3
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Jockyscott95 wrote: »Damn mine comes in at 41. Don’t even want to know what that means.
It means you’re in the right place to make it better.
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corinasue1143 wrote: »Jockyscott95 wrote: »Damn mine comes in at 41. Don’t even want to know what that means.
It means you’re in the right place to make it better.
Thanks, just can’t believe I let it get so bad.4 -
For the vast majority of people, BMI will be a good guide.
It is usually blatantly obvious if you are an outlier for whom an unusually high or low BMI is not relevant- extreme body builder, double amputee, person with dwarfism, 9 month pregnant etc
There are also 'sub ranges' for different types of people - as has been pointed out, Asian people are usually healthier at BMI's lower than non Asian people - but this is not clear cut and of course 'asian people' covers a diverse range of ethnicity
Detailed article from WHO on this if anyone interested https://www.who.int/nutrition/publications/bmi_asia_strategies.pdf
As I have pointed out before, athletic young men are often healthy at at sightly higher BMI's than the official cut off point. Not elite body builders, just generally sporty young men.
Extremely unlikely a doctor would be concerned about a sporty young man with a BMI of 26 or 27.
Slightly over - not 31, sorry OP - highly likely a BMI of 31 that says you are obese does mean you are obese.4 -
Personally I like the BMI concept a lot. It pulls back from the weeds of "pounds" to something that's bigger-picture. To wit: are you underweight, properly weighted, overweight, or obese? I like the simplicity of that.
When I started, my BMI was 47.2 and I set my "Phase I" goal as achieving a BMI of 39.9, which would take me out of the Morbidly Obese category and into Obese Class II. Which just sounded a lot better LOL. Who wants to be "morbidly" anything, right? I hit that 39.9 a few weeks ago so now I' in phase II, pushing for Obese Class I, 34.9. I do like how traversing an obesity class represent an effort of around four months -- that's a time horizon I can work with and stay motivated to achieve.
But most importantly, my BMI goes on every medical form, insurance entry, etc - it's the "shorthand" that the people who work on my body and pay for that work use to communicate with each other. Rather than rail against the machine about the unfairness of people who aren't really very overweight being classified as "obese" (which is true), I decided to just get on board and get my BMI down.8 -
Personally I like the BMI concept a lot. It pulls back from the weeds of "pounds" to something that's bigger-picture. To wit: are you underweight, properly weighted, overweight, or obese? I like the simplicity of that.
When I started, my BMI was 47.2 and I set my "Phase I" goal as achieving a BMI of 39.9, which would take me out of the Morbidly Obese category and into Obese Class II. Which just sounded a lot better LOL. Who wants to be "morbidly" anything, right? I hit that 39.9 a few weeks ago so now I' in phase II, pushing for Obese Class I, 34.9. I do like how traversing an obesity class represent an effort of around four months -- that's a time horizon I can work with and stay motivated to achieve.
But most importantly, my BMI goes on every medical form, insurance entry, etc - it's the "shorthand" that the people who work on my body and pay for that work use to communicate with each other. Rather than rail against the machine about the unfairness of people who aren't really very overweight being classified as "obese" (which is true), I decided to just get on board and get my BMI down.Personally I like the BMI concept a lot. It pulls back from the weeds of "pounds" to something that's bigger-picture. To wit: are you underweight, properly weighted, overweight, or obese? I like the simplicity of that.
When I started, my BMI was 47.2 and I set my "Phase I" goal as achieving a BMI of 39.9, which would take me out of the Morbidly Obese category and into Obese Class II. Which just sounded a lot better LOL. Who wants to be "morbidly" anything, right? I hit that 39.9 a few weeks ago so now I' in phase II, pushing for Obese Class I, 34.9. I do like how traversing an obesity class represent an effort of around four months -- that's a time horizon I can work with and stay motivated to achieve.
But most importantly, my BMI goes on every medical form, insurance entry, etc - it's the "shorthand" that the people who work on my body and pay for that work use to communicate with each other. Rather than rail against the machine about the unfairness of people who aren't really very overweight being classified as "obese" (which is true), I decided to just get on board and get my BMI down.
hey! Great to hear from you and thank you for taking the time to respond to my message. I also have set a PHASE I 2 3 plan. I really like the concept and i have also linked it to BMI before I can move on to next phase. Great to hear someone else is also doing this. Well done for you journey so far. This is amazing progress and also trend forward.
Keep in touch please!
David
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@sijomial and I are on the same page here. It is just one statistic that has been shown to correlate with good health. People like it because it's simple to measure (weight in kg divided by height in meters squared). My doctor does not believe there's much risk at the higher end of normal.2
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