How accurate is BMI?

[minties]

I suppose I can see your point. But my OH is very fit and trim but the BMI makes him think he's fat, so it bothers me. He's certainly not fat at all.

 

[emyandpotato]

By the sounds of it he falls in to the high muscle mass category so it's probably totally inaccurate for him! My point was just that it's helpful to have some guidelines for what is healthy because as much as we think we know what is a healthy weight it can be easy to lose track.

 

[tallybee]

If you need a graph, chart or calculator to tell you that you are overweight, then you need a new mirror! I don't need to know my BMI to know that I'm obese.

My OH is obsessed with BMI, he's very fit (can run up mountains, does heavy weight lifting yadda yadda) but because his BMI is slightly above where it should be, he's always raving on and on about it. Blerk.

I think a lot of people do need it actually. Like when I was 10.5 stone I was pushing overweight (I'm 5'5) but I felt and thought I looked exactly the same as how I was at 9.5, or 8.5, or 8.... Looking back I can see I was fat but at the time I felt the same as I feel now and it's so easy to kid yourself, or if you already have a crappy view of yourself as so many women do it's easy just to see your fatter body as the same as your 'normal' body which you thought was fat anyway. Am I even making any sense?!?! Without a BMI saying I was overweight I probably would have thought I was normal, is what I'm trying to say. And without a BMI chart telling me that my normal weight of 9 stone is healthy, I'd probably truly consider myself now to be overweight, like I did as a teenager.

Makes total sense to me xxx

 

[tallybee]

I suppose I can see your point. But my OH is very fit and trim but the BMI makes him think he's fat, so it bothers me. He's certainly not fat at all.

My husband was also deemed overweight by BMI but he was not fat, it was muscle x

 

[Tasha]

emy that makes total sense to me. Like my BMI was obese and on the verge or morbidly obese this time last year. I was a size eighteen (UK) and am now a size 12 (occasionally a ten), I still see myself as that size eighteen as my view of myself is really messed up, so knowing my BMI is in the normal range helps me to rationalise (a bit) that I am not as big as I think I am.

 

[Bex84]

I watched a programme that said bmi wasent even designed my someone in medical profesion it was done by a statastisian looking at life insurance. apparently even if you diet most of the time you go back to your natural weight. The reason weight has gone up in fast food companies increased portion sizers which has scewed peoples idea of normal portion, there has been rationing in past, people yo yo diet and convinience food is more readily available. You can go in to starvation mode by limiting food in take even if over weight. I think its more about healthy life style rather than obsessing over a number. I know people who weigh in healthy range that have a really unhealthy life style

 

[LoveCakes]

BMI is roughly correct but obviously doesn't take large amounts of muscle into account which is why a gym would say to ignore it . Unfortunately the medical profession put too much blind reliance on it.

Body fat isn't a fool proof indicator either, plenty of people who look thin can have high amounts of corporeal fat around their organs due to poor diet.

While I don't agree with the specifics of stephs post I do agree with the idea that the normalisation of obesity isn't necessarily good. While you can be confident and beautiful at any weight making people complacent means they are less likely to take action to improve their long term health.

 

[stephx]

BMI is roughly correct but obviously doesn't take large amounts of muscle into account which is why a gym would say to ignore it . Unfortunately the medical profession put too much blind reliance on it.

Body fat isn't a fool proof indicator either, plenty of people who look thin can have high amounts of corporeal fat around their organs due to poor diet.

While I don't agree with the specifics of stephs post I do agree with the idea that the normalisation of obesity isn't necessarily good. While you can be confident and beautiful at any weight making people complacent means they are less likely to take action to improve their long term health.

This is pretty much what I was trying to say. I've deleted the rest of my post- I was tired and it came across in the wrong way totally. Was not my intention to come across so bluntly. Sorry for any offense