I’ve read a lot of articles online about how BMI is not relevant because you could have a lot of muscle and it’ll put you as overweight
But a LOT of people do not do any physical excercise. In this case isn’t bmi accurate and relevant towards their health?
It seems like the exception is only for a small group of people but is used to delegitimize the entire concept
EDIT: I meant accurate for people who don’t exercise / do physical activities, these are the exceptions
It’s a screener, not diagnostic. You’re right, it does indicate possible risks in a lot of people. Its also just one of many relevant pieces of information and should be used as such. Weight is so touchy, all wrapped up in morality (good/bad food, I’m being bad, etc.). Being obese by any measure doesn’t make you a bad person who makes poor choices.
I am 5’6 and in college weighed 155. My coaches and athletic trainers told me I was “overweight” and should weigh less. I was a college soccer player and college track runner. I frequently beat the majority of the men’s team 3 mile times. In no way was I in bad shape.
I had no fat left to lose and had plenty of muscle from a life of competitive soccer. The BMI chart could disappear and I would celebrate.
Hasn’t it been disproven that it’s wrong and outdated? Maybe I’m not remembering this right but I read something about how it’s outdated and inaccurate.
BMI is useful data on a population level (ex. for research purposes), but not on an individual level to determine one’s health. BMI doesn’t account for things like body fat distribution so it isn’t always an accurate determinant for how healthy someone is. However, many population level studies have found a correlation between high BMI and poorer health outcomes, hence why many people believe this correlation applies to the individual level (ecological fallacy). Waist circumference is a better metric for a person’s health, although not perfect either.
This is the way I think about it. Weight alone means nothing in regards to health. If i told you I weigh 200 pounds would you be able to tell if Im healthy or not based on just that? No, I could be a 6’4” fitness freak or I could be 5’0” and obese. By adding height into the equation you add some context to the weight but there are still so many factors that BMI leaves out that it’s almost as useless as weight alone.
The BMI chart is a loose way for clinicians to assess someone’s risk of developing metabolic or other conditions. The BMI chart has actually been changed through the 20th century because insurance companies realized they could make more money by classifying more people into overweight and obese categories. However, I think BMI is only one facet of health. Thinks like BF%, lean body mass, blood pressure, triglycerides, cholesterol, and other metabolic markers provide a more complete picture of health.
BMI can be a tool to determine health but is not an accurate tool for health. I raised my concern about my BMI being in the high obese range but due to my skeletal size and muscle mass I’m not considered obese but in a healthy weight.
According to the BMI, I’m really underweight. But anyone thatknows me will tell you, I eat 3 meals a day. With nourishing snacks and whatever. And get all the proper nutrients I need.
My doctor literally told me to ignore the BMI and that it wasn’t designed with everyone and all races and such in mind.
The problem is that it is just a ratio of weight to hight. This is what makes it completely meaningless. It’s not related to health at all.
P.S.:
It’s in the name, really. Index of body mass.
You got BMI or 35? You’re massive.
You may be fat, muscular, or somewhere in-between. This index is not concerned with these details.
BMI is used as an estimate for body fat. Having a body fat percentage that is too high is what raises risk for poor health outcomes. So someone with a higher than normal muscle mass for their weight would technically be overweight/obese but may not have an elevated risk. Someone that is not considered overweight/obese using BMI may still have a higher than recommended percent body fat and would be at an elevated risk.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6469873/
Bmi is incredibly useful but as with a lot of medical metrics it is misused by people who lack some medical knowledge and experience and then has been counterattacked based on their misunderstandings.
It is essentially representing your waist measurement and will roughly correlate with your risk of developing various issues. It’s a useful metric because it is incredibly accessible and quick and easy to get a reliable value that is reproducible between different practitioners. This makes it useful for research and as a metric for health monitoring. It has never been intended to be the be all and end all of Health metrics and is supposed to be used as part of an overall picture. There will be outliers to any health metric, for any number we measure the ‘normal’ values are arbitrarily designated. For any criteria where you can say “x criteria increases your risk of y” not everyone who has x will be at increased risk. This is just the nature of research, we can identify trends over a population that show correlation but on an individual level we are talking probabilities.
This doesn’t mean it is useless on an individual level either, it is useful for the vast majority of people. Every medical test has its limitations, it’s a hallmark of people with a small amount of knowledge about a subject that they identify issues with e.g a test or a paper and then declare it useless, they don’t have the knowledge to appreciate the nuance and balance. There’s already plenty of misinformation in your replies here.
It’s never been accurate for me because I store a good portion of my weight in my boobs + hips and very little in my abdomen, and I’ve always been pretty muscular. Even when my ED was at its worst, my lowest was 143 and I had people telling me every day (including my doctor) that I didn’t look well. When in the obese category, my wedding dress was a size 8-10. It’s never worked for me, but that doesn’t mean it’s the same for everyone. Health is so personalized, and involves not only weight but blood work etc, I don’t think having generic indicators of health is particularly useful.
Nope. BMI is a horribly outdated way of measurement. I’m 5’9 205 and very muscular with visible abs yet I’m considered obese on the BMI. 5 time CrossFit games winner May Fraser is also “obese” according to BMI.
BMI is good to know because the heavier you are for your height the more susceptible to disease you are. More specifically, the higher your BMI the more likely you are to develop cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure, etc. That being said, BMI doesn’t really give a good metric on body composition, diet, lifestyle, or preexisting conditions. It’s just a measure of whether or not your weight is appropriate for your height.
It isn’t great when used at an individual level in the absence of common sense. For example, let’s say you meet a rugby player who may have a BMI defined as obese due to excess muscle mass. Chances are they’re healthy and not at risk of obesity related illness. So common sense would dictate that BMI isn’t the best indicator of health in this person.
Next person you meet is also obese. They rarely leave the house other than to go to work and even then they drive and are sat at a desk all day. Common sense here, would say BMI is a useful indicator as chances are this person is at risk of obesity illnesses.
When using it at an individual level, it should be used as one tool amongst others. You may wish to use blood pressure, blood indicators, VO2 make etc etc or just common sense in conjunction with BMI.
At a population level these individual differences just become noise within the data and so aren’t as prominent.