Is your BMI BS?

Numbers, numbers, why do we care?

The number on the scale, the waistband of our jeans, the size of our wedding dress - so many women let numbers rule their day. Then, when the whole "Body Mass Index is more important than your weight" movement started, we breathed a (slight) collective sigh of relief because this seemed to take into account more than just our weight. Your BMI is a number calculated from your weight and height and is used as an indicator of "body fatness."

(The formula used is: Weight (kg) / [height (m)]2

You can figure yours out here (even if you're not British - this will convert your pounds to kilos automatically.)

What BMI does not take into account is muscle mass. So a petite woman can be very strong and, since muscle wwighs more than fat, her weight will be higher and thus, her BMI can easily land her in the "overweight" category, even though she's super fit.

This troubled blogger Kate Harding so she assembled a collection of photos , complete with each individual’s height, weight and BMI. The point is to challenge our ideas of what “overweight” and “obese” look like, and I say "Mission Accomplished!" It appears that many of these women (and one cat, which I find frigging hilarious), are "overweight" or "obese" by clinical standards...but to look at them, you just think "normal." Like this woman. Apparently, she is “overweight.” Um, no. She's 5'4" and 150 lbs.

And this hot mama is just a few pounds short of falling into obesity. I think she looks like a crazily flexible babe.

Oh, and here is Moxie, the sweet but "morbidly obese" kitty cat. Brazilliant! Maybe Moxie should be hitting the treadmill a few times a week? ;-)

(FYI the categoris for BMI are as follows:

Underweight = <18.5
Normal weight = 18.5-24.9
Overweight = 25-29.9
Obesity = BMI of 30 or greater)

PS thanks to http://www.feministe.us/blog/ for the idea!

Comments

I've known for a while that the BMI is not a great way to gauge your weight as they have always said that it didn't apply to athletes. I was "overweight" as a swimmer as were many of my team mates. Not exactly what a teenage/20 something year old woman wants to hear.

Also that statement about athletes just confuses me even more especially when so many magazines and doctors are telling women to become more active and lift weights. Oftentimes the workouts featured in magazines are inspired by olympic athletes or based on their workouts. So are you only an athlete if you're Olympic bound? I wonder what the BMI level of that woman is that you described in the cardio vs. weights post and whether or not she considers herself to be an athlete.

My Personal & Comm. Health teacher told us about this girl on our campus who was categorized as "obese". The only thing weird about this was she looked like a very slim girl. But apparently, even though she was thin, it didn't mean she was healthy by any means and her body was 30% fat.

I realize fat % isn't the same as BMI since BMI doesn't take muscle vs. fat into account but I still thought it was interesting.

I think my BMI is in the normal weight category...but I was in that same category when I had an ED in high school yet had my fat % measured and was considered underweight b/c it was so low. I don't even understand why we still use BMI at all, specially when we have all these diff ways to measure pure body fat % vs. muscle mass.

Back in the days before BMI, my "Physical Education" class (in high school no less) made us do our own "self assessment" as part of our grade. Imagine the gym teacher's (and cheerleading coach) surprise when she began critizing one of the girls for her weight vs. height ratio only to find out the girl she was so critical of was her head cheerleader! Even at that somewhat impressionable age I was a bit disturbed at this woman's fanatic preaching of how our weight number needed to be so low.

BTW - The cheerleader was 5'8", weighed 165 lbs., and wore a size six. Kudos to her: she told the gym teacher to frick off (cheerleading season was already done and we were seniors so she didn't stand to lose anything).

The scary thing is that BMI is now being used in schools to label kids fat and "at risk." I'm sure my son's BMI is fine and my daughter's is low. But it doesn't mean that they're eating as well as they should or getting enough exercise for their age. BMI like standardized testing has a lot of issues.

I think BMI is just an example of what happens when you push quantity tests over quality. I mean, yeah, it's easier to do that calculation than actually measure fat levels for 1000s of people. but it does so little on the individual level.

I think the women she showed classified as overweight or obesese were. some of then were very heavy. so what is her point? is it that if you dont say it out loud its not true? 150lbs @ 5'4" is too big. I am 5'8" and 150 for me is too much so where is a girl who is 4 inches shorter going to put it? at least BMI is a way to gauage weight v height which is important to consider - some one who is 4ft 8 cannot carry as much weight as 6 footer. people seem to object so much to just their weight in lbs being used to gauge health so heres another way. people also love to jump on the muscle is heavier than fat bandwagon that is only relevant when you first lose the fat and then begin to build muscle. its not relevant if you are overweight and not working those muscles. Also the poor woman who was clasified as triathlete. I commend her for getting out there - we all start somewhere, but what point is the blogger trying to make? is it that becuase she struggles over the finish line if races somehow that negates the fact

she is clearly morbidly obese.

Cassie, people who are 4 inches shorter than you may still weigh more for different reasons. That's the whole point we're making about BMI. Someone who is shorter than you and weighs more may store her extra poundage in dense muscle mass, not necessarily in fat. I'm 5'2" and 140, so My BMI is overweight, but my body fat is 17% which is low because I workout 5-6 days a week and lift weights. That's not jumping on the muscle vs. fat bandwagon, it's a fact. Body frame should also be taken into account. I was 103 when I started college which looks fine on some women my height, but on me I looked like skelator because I have a larger frame. Not to mention that at 103 (a so-called healthier weight for my height), I was barely eating and wasn't exercising at all. Once I started working out and eating better, I actually GAINED weight. The whole point is that how much weight a person carries has to do with a lot more factors than height alone and the BMI is not the best measure of health.

Ok Kim, I'm not responding in a snippy way, honestly I'm just curious, What do you mean by frame? Cos i'm thinking somebody 6 inches shorter than me at 140lbs is going to overweight. please explain. if I'm wrong i'm wrong Also of course you gained weight when you started eating healthier and working out, if as you indicate you were "barely eating" at 103. I dont know that i believe in the theory of diferent frames / big bones. Skeletons all end up the same approximate size hence they can tell a skeletons age & sex etc based on bone size. I viewed the slide show and felt thatthe women who the blogger was insinuating were not obese in actual fact were. I just hear so mnay women say after a week of working out and not losing weight that they must be gaining muscle mass. thats what i meant by jumping on the bandwagon.

I just measured myself against the wall and took off 6 inches and I have to say that is a much shiorter person than me. therefore I think to weight the same as me they must be overweight. unless they are extremely muscular. as in comepetitively so. Kim if you look and feel good , hats off to you.

I think one of the major points of the pictorial was to challenge society's notions of weight issues. The feministe blog explains it well: "I also found myself cringing at each photo heading, wherein women were labeled 'normal,' 'underweight,' 'overweight,' 'obese,' or 'morbidly obese.' Seeing those tags put on individual women with actual faces and bodies really illustrates how damaging and harmful they can be (beyond just inaccurate) — what does 'overweight' even mean, anyway? I calculated my own BMI and at 20.9 I fall pretty smack dab in the center of the 'normal' range. But I look at my own body and I don’t think that I’m more 'normal' than any of the women in those pictures; and in my own context of a family full of thin people, I often feel (and, compared to them, look) 'overweight.' Compared to my sixteen-year-old self, I feel huge." (Note these aren't my words, but Jill at http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2007/10/01/the-obesity-epidemic-in-pictures/ Check it out.

I think we are too used to seeing people who are not at a healthy weight at either end of the spectrum. We see too many skinny celebs and too many not healthy/overweight people in real life to really judge anymore what is a healthy weight. Most of those women who are overweight, obese etc., are. Obviously, the BMI is really bad when it comes to athletes (any type of athlete..not just Olympic bound),but it puts most of us in the right categories. and yes, my bmi is overweight and it is not a healthy "muscley" overweight.

I'm not sure what the rules are about posting links up here, but I found this article at Reader's Digest really relevant to the topic: http://www.rd.com/content/weight-loss-goals-myth-vs-reality/;jsessionid=8EA2200795F03B9A1FEECC7ACA03AFEF.app1_rd1

Quoted from the article, "The number listed for someone your height on a standard weight and height chart is just an approximation of what your healthy weight should be. Don't let this one number be the way you determine if you've succeeded or failed."

BMI is, for the most part, a pretty useful tool for average people. It's NOT a good tool for athletes or the severely obese. I used to be pretty overweight and I lost a lot of weight by exercising and eating right. I used to weigh about 190, too much for my 5'3" frame. But when I was at 120, that was about right for me...I had 14% body fat at that weight and I looked terrific. Now, I've been running a lot (8-12 miles a day) and I'm down to a scary skinny weight of 100 lbs. I'm at 7% body fat and I'm trying to gain weight so I don't suffer permanent damage. My doctor insists there's nothing wrong though because "you're not that underweight". So it CAN be total BS