Government calorie advise misleading?

I'm in the UK and I largely agree. I think it goes to show that no guideline can be taken absolutely, although I would say that it does seem rather outdated and generic advice - but it's impossible to give a one-size-fits-all number given the variation in shapes, sizes and lifestyles.

The guideline actually does come pretty close to my requirements, I'm just shy of 6'2 (187cm) and hover around 190lbs. Factoring in some exercise, 2500 is about right, if not a bit low depending on how active I am.

But here's the thing - per Google, the average UK man is 178cm and 187lbs, he is increasingly sedentary and people with higher bf% require fewer calories than people with lots of lean body mass. According to the TDEE calculator, your average UK man, assuming 20% body fat and sedentary lifestyle, needs only 2200 calories.

The numbers perhaps need revisiting, but, just as is the case with BMI, it's incredibly hard to come up with a one size fits all!

The idea that an average person needs X calories, for a single specific numeric X, is just nonsense on the surface of it. We're different sizes; we have jobs ranging from deskbound reference librarian on phone duty to bricklayer's apprentice carrying hods of bricks and mortar all day; we have different hobbies, from watching TV all evening in a recliner chair to training for ultramarathons; and more.

I don't know what the context of your single-value average-man number is. That matters.

I'm in the US, not the UK, the US does use a generic average number for men/women in some overview-y publications, but also has more detailed and nuanced advice that is essentially TDEE calculator estimation territory, and much more nuanced. (One example: Body weight planner at https://www.niddk.nih.gov/bwp ). Those more personalized, nuanced estimates can differ wildly from the generic overview-y generality numbers.

The overview-y single number for men and women - here, anyway - is just used as an example. The other resources give more specific, personalized estimates. The estimates are about as good as any non-governmental so-called calculator is going to give, and probably better than some.

Any personalized "calculator" estimate, even an estimate from a fitness tracker, is still just an estimate, pretty much the average calorie need for demographically similar individuals. We're individuals, and we may differ from that average. Being far off from it is rare, but it can happen.

The most authoritative estimates comes from tracking calories as accurately as practical for 4-6 weeks, or 1 to 2 full menstrual periods for those who have them. The weight-change results can be combined with the calorie logs using some arithmetic, to get a personalized estimate. The calculator or fitness tracker estimates are just a starting point for that experiment.

The government "generic average woman/man" estimate is pretty much irrelevant for an individual who's calorie counting. I don't know how the UK's government sources talk about it, but here in the US, that's reasonably apparent to a person reading the detailed government recommendations thoughtfully.

BMI was created by the insurance industry as an actuarial table, not the medical “industry.” I’m 6’ tall, 218 pounds with about 18% body fat and I’m “overweight.” It actually says my “ideal” weight would be 162 pounds. Last time I weighed 160 pounds was after losing 30 pounds during Ranger School in my 20s.

I ignore BMI and any government sanctioned diet/calorie requirement/food pyramid/etc all together. I feel like they want us fat, sick and helpless.

BMI is widely misunderstood and misused, including by some in the insurance industry.

But no, BMI wasn't "created by the insurance industry".

Adolphe Quetelet, a Belgian astronomer, mathematician, statistician, and sociologist, devised the basis of the BMI between 1830 and 1850 as he developed what he called "social physics".

 Quetelet himself never intended for the index, then called the Quetelet Index, to be used as a means of medical assessment. Instead, it was a component of his study of l'homme moyen, or the average man. Quetelet thought of the average man as a social ideal, and developed the body mass index as a means of discovering the socially ideal human person.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_mass_index

Even US government publications about BMI talk about it as not a definitive measure, but rather a screener to identify who may need more individualized attention.

Healthcare providers use body mass index (BMI) to screen for overweight and obesity in adults. . . . Your provider may talk to you about overweight and obesity if your BMI shows that your weight is above average for your height. But there is more to obesity than BMI.

https://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/overweight-and-obesity

They also say that very muscular people like you with a high BMI aren't obese.

Big athletes with lots of muscle might have a BMI over 30, but may still have a healthy body composition. They would not be considered obese from the perspective of health risk.

https://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/educational/wecan/healthy-weight-basics/body-mass-index.htm

People sure do get worked up about it, though. IMU, it's a reasonable predictor of concerning body fat levels for a large fraction of the population, even as individuals. Not all, though, obviously.

Sure, I think that's very likely. PP is 6' and 218, 18% bodyfat, and feels . . . fussed? . . . that he's "overweight" by BMI. That'd be BMI 29.6, getting close to the border between overweight/obese BMI. IMO, it's not super unusual for men who are active/athletic/muscular to fall into the "overweight" BMI range but not have excess body fat. If his stats are as he states, he's not overweight or obese in the common sense of those terms, not unhealthy in body fat terms.

I feel like more individual regular humans say silly things about BMI than governments do. 😆 If someone's truly at a healthy weight, one that they and their doctor agree about honestly and with good information at hand, I don't understand why that individual would be concerned about the BMI number just because it doesn't apply well in their case.

For the majority of people, it seems likely that BMI is a reasonable screening tool. It doesn't capture things like the - reportedly increasingly common - MONW subgroup (metabolically obese, normal weight); it doesn't reflect reality for a percent of more-muscular-than-average regular guys and a very few quite muscular women; and some other cases.

More people than the true exceptions seem to want to disparage the BMI metric because they don't like their personal result.

Fancy wording, technical term, poTAYto, poTAHto . . . I guess. 😆🤣