BMI for athletic build

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FunRun08
FunRun08 Posts: 203 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
First of all I am not a fan of BMI charts, I had a Dr look at her chart and inform me I needed to lose about 10lbs. Not taking into account my 19% body fat (done with calipers) or my resting heart rate or 48, or anything else about my health or life style just based on a chart that she tried to fit me into.

However, rant aside, here is a chart that I found for people with muscular builds, it seems a little more accurate to me, and I wanted to share with any like wise frustrated people who are sick of being in an unhealthy category because they are strong instead of skinny.

http://www.askdocweb.com/bmi4lean.html?weight=175&htf=5&hti=7&answer=23&comment=Desirable

Replies

  • Giraffe33991
    Giraffe33991 Posts: 434 Member
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    Very cool. Thanks for sharing.
  • rsullivan
    rsullivan Posts: 13 Member
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    I think lumping everyone into one determination of BMI is so wrong. Some of us have hips and there are so many different body types. I know I need to lose weight, but I also know my body will never endure what it would need to get to the recommendations of BMI. Thanks for the link!
  • cheddarboy
    cheddarboy Posts: 124 Member
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    don't use it at all,........ track bf%
  • alison2429
    alison2429 Posts: 236 Member
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    That's more like it. According to this site my weight is 'desirable'. Yay go me and thanks for sharing this.
  • bstamps12
    bstamps12 Posts: 1,184
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    I have always hated BMI! As an athlete in high school, my parents were told I was overweight and I may be near obese...I wore a size ZERO at the time and an elite swimmer. While I built a ton of fat on top of my muscles the first two years of college, I know now that as a triathlete, I have more muscle than most people my height and weight and while my BMI is in the healthy range, it's towards the upper end of it and I think it's stupid. Thanks for the link!!
  • JamesBurkes
    JamesBurkes Posts: 382 Member
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    don't use it at all,........ track bf%

    This. BMI is a ridiculous and arbitrary measure, much like other ridiculous "mass" health recommendations, such as the UK's "Five a Day" initiative (no evidence at all, a number just picked because it "sounded right" and looked zippy on promotional materials) or even the daily alcohol intake of recommended units - again, not based on any evidence at all but decided during a meeting of senior public health officials based on what seemed reasonable. One attendee (Dr Richard Smith) has even admitted they "plucked the figures out of the air."

    If they genuinely cared about health, they'd give up these measures and focus on measuring lung capacity, heart rate, blood pressure, body fat percentage etc. But that's all too tricky, complicated and expensive to extend to mass populations hence the existence of BMI - which generally doesn't work.

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