My rule of thumb is that anyone who lifts weights is “obese”. You don’t have to look like Schwarzenegger. But muscle is heavier than fat and if you bulk up even slightly, you will weigh more than they want you to weigh. Thanks for exercising: You are now obese.
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.
Me too. And I am in shape. Round is a shape, right?
In my youth I was very athletic and was a nationally ranked regional champion cyclist. When I was first hired by the fire department that I was employed by for 25 years my body fat and mass was measured hydrostatically (under water). It indicated that I was 3% fat which is considered very lean. Yet because I had a lot of muscle mass at the that time, my BMI indicated that I was a fatty.
BMI is used because it’s really easy to calculate. If you are muscular, it is not particularly helpful. How many people honestly wonder if they are fat or muscular? Honestly.
If you lose muscle mass and gain fat, it improves your BMI. If you add muscle and lose fat, your BMI will get worse. Not a good metric in and of itself.
Body composition is more useful, but a lot more difficult to measure.
Utterly useless. It first came out during the era of phrenology when “science” in England had gotten really into proving that poor people just suck on the genetic level and there’s nothing that can be done. It’s crap science from the get go.
I am 6’1” and 198 pounds, wear 34” waist. The BMI considers me obese
The BMI is only useful if one knows his/her body type. There are three body types...
Useful ... for what?
For determininig the risk of a life threatening medical issue or long term cronic condition in the next 10 years ... I would assert “marginally”
For determining next months actual weight .... “probably”
My college age son—a very tall and thin distance runner—has a BMI of 15. He had that same BMI when younger as well; he’s been tall and thin all his life, even though he always eats well. An idiot PA in college “reported” him to his team and accused him of having an eating disorder and required him to get a bone density test (of course his bones were fine), and his pediatrician had to write a note to his coach verifying his BMI was normal for him, and had always been 15 (or even lower).
BMI is not one size fits all. Some people are just thin—and especially so if a distance runner.
That is ridiculous.
According to the BMI standards, I could weigh 130 lbs and still be normal.
That's concentration camp thin. The only people who are that thin are ill.
It kept me off the fat boy program in the military.
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.
The BMI calcs were probably written by a doctor from Somalia
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....!
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.
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.