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How useful is the body mass index (BMI)?
www.health.harvard.edu ^ | Posted March 30, 2016, 9:30 am , Updated June 22, 2020, 12:00 am | Robert H. Shmerling, MD

Posted on 09/17/2020 8:59:38 AM PDT by Red Badger

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To: cloudmountain
There are three body types...

ECTOMORPH, ENDOMORPH AND MESOMORPH?..............

21 posted on 09/17/2020 9:24:02 AM PDT by Red Badger (Sine Q-Anon.....................very............)
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To: JohnnyP

Oops, the ratio should be less than 0.5.


22 posted on 09/17/2020 9:25:31 AM PDT by JohnnyP (Thinking is hard work (I stole that from Rush).)
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To: Red Badger

It kept me off the fat boy program in the military.


23 posted on 09/17/2020 9:25:38 AM PDT by AlaskaErik (In time of peace, prepare for war.)
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To: BEJ
There are a lot of exceptions to the BMI so I wouldn’t put too much stock in it. It works for some and not others.

Suck in your gut and puff out your neck and it's easy to pass.

24 posted on 09/17/2020 9:26:52 AM PDT by AlaskaErik (In time of peace, prepare for war.)
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To: KarlInOhio

” I would expect width and thickness to increase by 10% also for a total weight increase of 33%. “

V = Pi * r^2 * h


25 posted on 09/17/2020 9:30:01 AM PDT by TexasGator (Z1z)
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To: AlaskaErik

I was in the Marines back when they first started using BMI as a measure to determine if you were ‘obese’.

We had a guy in our company that was a body builder. He was a short person, probably 5’ 3 “ or so.

He was in no ways ‘fat’ or ‘obese’, but his BMI said he was.

They made him go to what we called ‘Fat Body Platoon’ three times a week, afternoons.

He loved it.

He got to exercise and jog and lift weights and it got him out of ‘work’!....................


26 posted on 09/17/2020 9:32:09 AM PDT by Red Badger (Sine Q-Anon.....................very............)
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To: Red Badger

It’s not the fat that kills you, it’s the things that put the fat there that does.

As Dr. Berg said, You don’t lose weight to get healthy, you get healthy to lose weight.


27 posted on 09/17/2020 9:33:22 AM PDT by dfwgator (Endut! Hoch Hech!)
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To: Red Badger
BMI does something similar — it expresses the relationship between your height and weight as a single number that is not dependent on “frame size.”

What? It absolutely does. One method to determine frame size is to wrap your index finger and thumb around your opposing wrist. If they don't touch, you are large frame. Touch equals normal. Crossing equals small.

BMI fails to identify "thin outside fat inside" (TOFI). This is a case of insulin resistance that may be accompanied by sarcopenia.

The most accurate is DEXA and segmental impedance analysis. Minimally basal metabolic rate (BMR) can be used over BMI.

The most accurate rapid measurement is the waist to height ratio. <.50 is reasonable accurate across frame size and sex.
28 posted on 09/17/2020 9:44:25 AM PDT by PA Engineer (Liberate America from the Occupation Media.)
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To: Red Badger

The BMI calcs were probably written by a doctor from Somalia


29 posted on 09/17/2020 9:48:30 AM PDT by Karliner (Heb 4:12 Rom 8:28 Rev 3, "...This is the end of the beginning." Churchill)
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To: Red Badger

Know a girl. I say girl because she is 30 years younger than me but whatever. Anyway. Big girl, very pretty, but overweight. Wanted that lapband surgery, stomach surgery to lose weight. Dr. wouldn’t do the surgery until her BMI was over 30...32, whatever. She is a nurse. She was just short of 30. So, she ate herself over 30, went back to the DR. and got her surgery. Lost over 100 lbs. pretty quick.

I don’t know why she couldn’t have just quit eating so much and excercised some but it worked for her....!


30 posted on 09/17/2020 9:50:12 AM PDT by saleman
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To: Karliner

Or a Jenny Craig stockholder....................


31 posted on 09/17/2020 9:50:20 AM PDT by Red Badger (Sine Q-Anon.....................very............)
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To: saleman
She is a nurse.

All she had to do was eat hospital 'food'...................

32 posted on 09/17/2020 9:51:37 AM PDT by Red Badger (Sine Q-Anon.....................very............)
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To: Red Badger

It was noted when BMI came out that their formula would have declared Shaquille O’Neill, during his playing career with the Lakers, as “morbidly obese”.

I reject “one size fits all medicine”, particularly that foisted upon us by government-run health organizations. The whole COVID debacle is proof that they often don’t know what they’re talking about.


33 posted on 09/17/2020 9:59:48 AM PDT by OrangeHoof (COVID infects the Democrat brain and makes them drunk with power.)
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To: Red Badger

BMI is useful when dealing with people who don’t have a significant amount of extra muscle. So for the vast majority of the US population, it works just fine. For those who do build extra muscle, it’s not useful. That’s when a doctor should be taking a more individualized approach to that person’s fitness and health.


34 posted on 09/17/2020 10:00:04 AM PDT by 2aProtectsTheRest (The media is banging the fear drum enough. Don't help them do it.)
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To: OrangeHoof

The modern term BMI was coined in a 1972 paper, the same year Shaquille O’Neal was born.

And yes, for athletes who build significant muscle mass, it’s not an accurate gauge. For the general public, which has very little muscle, it actually works pretty well as a short-hand.


35 posted on 09/17/2020 10:05:13 AM PDT by 2aProtectsTheRest (The media is banging the fear drum enough. Don't help them do it.)
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To: Red Badger

BMI is totally stupid. It measures nothing. People are not just different heights. They are different thicknesses as well. BMI assumes that everyone is the same muscle mass, and bone mass. Totally false.


36 posted on 09/17/2020 10:12:06 AM PDT by poinq
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To: KarlInOhio

And men and women should weigh the same


37 posted on 09/17/2020 10:15:31 AM PDT by a fool in paradise (Joe Biden- "First thing I'd do is repeal those Trump tax cuts." (May 4th, 2019))
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To: KarlInOhio

Look at a 100 Meter sprinter and a 5000 meter runner. Their BMI is very different but neither has any fat. The decathlon athlete has an even higher BMI with no fat.


38 posted on 09/17/2020 10:16:48 AM PDT by poinq
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To: AlaskaErik

lol


39 posted on 09/17/2020 10:16:55 AM PDT by BEJ
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To: Red Badger

It’s one of those arbitrary metrics that have become truth because it is repeated so often — largely by people who don’t know any better, because all they’ve ever learned in life, is what somebody told them to repeat. “Hey hey, ho ho...” as though that made them sound intelligent and united.

In the case of the “BMI,” “target heart rate,” “cholesterol,” it was sold as the “correct” answers to the idiotic tests to become certified as “fitness” instructors — at their one-day seminars for obtaining their certifications, which also required a “First Aid and CPR” certification as a prerequisite — for which they are simply certifying that one possessed it on admittance, and not that it was truly an expertise in anything beyond that.

That is the obvious example of abuse of these certifications of truth. There’s actually no scientific substantiation — but people quote the “experts” — because they have no idea that the “scientific method” requires validation by anyone — and not simply repetition of unquestioned, and unchallenged truths.

That is the quintessential scientific method — that it can be challenged at all times, by anyone — and not just the authoritarianism of those whose main achievement in life is rising to the position of greatest prominence — often by ruthlessly suppressing all other explanations. Thus the popular media preens itself on its ability to convince us of what is untrue as their own display of power in determining who are these authorities — just like the ancient “Pharisees and Scribes,” Jesus often referred to — as self-anointed authorities on virtually everything.

The BMI can be calculated from the original tables — just as the tax rate algorithm simulate the tax tables — but that doesn’t make it sacrosanct. The Target heart rate is a similar arbitrary calculation — mainly to sell heart rate monitors. The aversion to cholesterol has no scientific basis other than a few conjectures and deeply flawed epidemiological studies that merely confirmed what the proponent “wanted” to prove. That’s not science — even as much as it is repeated as the Golden Rule to Health either. In fact, that may be the cause of most age-related diseases of the metabolic kind — in that the brain and all the organs are actually composed of cholesterol and fats — because they are insoluble in water, and thus compose the cell walls, and when they break down, wreak predictable havoc on the rest of the body.

So when I hear someone boasting of knowing “BMI,” “Target heart rate,” “high cholesterol,” I immediately recognize that that is the extent of “all” they know — and nothing else of true significance.


40 posted on 09/17/2020 10:18:18 AM PDT by MikeHu
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