Heh, ShortList.com.

Still, their source is a better article.

miss diminutive: TIME FOR ANOTHER BMI THREAD.

Well we got a circumcision thread a little earlier, figure just need either a tipping or a cyclist thread and that'll meet the quota.

BMI doesn't apply to us citizens, duh

likely dumber and more annoying than they think also

Now, truly, they have no reason to live.

Nope I'm still a goddamn stick.

Via Infinito: Pretty sure this is SFW. It may or may not be relevant to the discussion.

From your link:

6'4" Yummm

/picture link keeps getting replaced with this:

kyleaugustus: /picture link keeps getting replaced with this:
[www.cockeyed.com image 161x206]

WTF. That's not the picture that preview was showing and it is what I was hoping to link.

kyleaugustus: kyleaugustus: /picture link keeps getting replaced with this:
[www.cockeyed.com image 161x206]

WTF. That's not the picture that preview was showing and it is what I was hoping to link.

Aaaaaand now it comes out as the creepy woman-in-door-way again that was in my original preview. I'm giving up now.

Frederick: [blackdcc.net image 442x575]

5'9" @ 210lbs
BMI = 31
Obese

Hell

BMI=42
Morbidly obese.

Frederick: 5'9" @ 210lbs
BMI = 31
Obese

I love how critics of these labels like to use pro athletes who are in the peak of human fitness as counterpoints. With a BMI of 31, unless you too are a pro athlete with a 6-pack and an Adonis body, then sorry, you're just fat.

BigLuca: Frederick: [blackdcc.net image 442x575]

5'9" @ 210lbs
BMI = 31
Obese

Hell
[gofitandhealthy.com image 430x567]
BMI=42
Morbidly obese.

Does the average person with a BMI of 42 take enough growth hormone and horse tranquilizers to look like that?

SacriliciousBeerSwiller: BigLuca: Frederick: [blackdcc.net image 442x575]

5'9" @ 210lbs
BMI = 31
Obese

Hell
[gofitandhealthy.com image 430x567]
BMI=42
Morbidly obese.

Does the average person with a BMI of 42 take enough growth hormone and horse tranquilizers to look like that?

Cheetos are a type of growth hormone, right?

CSB"
5'6" farker here....in my big weight loss push, I went from 240 down to 160 (BMI 25.8, still overweight). At 160, friends and family convinced me to see a doctor as I looked, in their various critiques , "sickly, weird, creepy, gross, and just not right". My old family doc mentioned my ribs probably didn't need to be showing as much as they were....and to ignore BMI. I puffed up to 180 and made everyone happy again...

/recently ran just over a 4 hour marathon (and hated it)
//not monstrously muscular at all; perhaps I am just dense?

BMI is a terrible metric. I'm 5'5" 162 and gaining, a BMI of 27 which is considered over-weight - I'd be overweight if it were not for the fact that I'm into bodybuilding and the weight makes sense here. My body is about 16% while bulking, which I think is fine. My end goal is brick-shiathouse mode, but we'll see. I get blood work done regularly due to a medication I choose to take, and I know I'm healthy.
From the NHLB - "Although BMI can be used for most men and women, it does have some limits:
It may overestimate body fat in athletes and others who have a muscular build.
It may underestimate body fat in older persons and others who have lost muscle."

kyleaugustus: Via Infinito: Pretty sure this is SFW. It may or may not be relevant to the discussion.

From your link:

6'4" Yummm

/picture link keeps getting replaced with this:
[www.cockeyed.com image 161x206]

Hmmm, I've never dated anyone near my height before.

BigLuca: Frederick: [blackdcc.net image 442x575]

5'9" @ 210lbs
BMI = 31
Obese

Hell
[gofitandhealthy.com image 430x567]
BMI=42
Morbidly obese.

The steroids alone must weigh 20 lbs.

Damn at 6'4" and 250 lbs I am considered "obese", which is absolutely absurd. I would have to weigh 204 lbs or less to be in the "normal" range, yet when I was that weight I looked like a holocaust survivor.

Don't get me wrong I could stand to lose some weight, but I feel that the 225-235 range is more fitting for my height and build.

Sasquach: 5'6" farker here....in my big weight loss push, I went from 240 down to 160 (BMI 25.8, still overweight). At 160, friends and family convinced me to see a doctor as I looked, in their various critiques , "sickly, weird, creepy, gross, and just not right".

Could be just the change... they are used to "big" you... so trim you looks more skinny that you would if you'd always been that size.

I'm ~5'9 and 160, and still have a little bit of fat around the gut I'm not happy about. Was 170 though with a belly a year ago. Certainly can't see any ribs on me, I'm thin but not skinny. Don't care much about the weight, just the fat. 160-170 with muscle is a lot different than 160-170 with love handles.

I thought everybody already knew that the BMI system is worthless.

Really? There are still some people who use it?

And while I can't speak about doctors, medical scientists are certainly aware that BMI is simply an indicator, not a rule. If we're running a study on overweight individuals, we'll use BMI as a first screening (say, we want BMI of 30+). Second screening will be if they are fit or fat. If an athlete walks in we'll send them right back out the door and thank them for their time.

Not that I've ever heard of an athlete signing up for an obesity study that wasn't specifically targeting larger athletes.

Pariah.: I thought everybody already knew that the BMI system is worthless.

Really? There are still some people who use it?

No worse that using BAC to determine sobriety (or lack thereof).

BMI was created to search for a link between height, weight, and health.

The farking god damned CREATOR said it failed miserably and there was no, asbolutely not, statistical correlation to any of it, and that it was a load of horse shiat.

Then the US needed something to tell fat farks they're a fat fark (NOW WITH MATHS!) so we get this.

/fat fark
//BMI is still pointless.

Joke is on you submitter, I already know I'm fat!

/sob

miss diminutive: TIME FOR ANOTHER BMI THREAD.

Yeah! I hate the way BMI overcharges bar owners for the right to play music over the radio!

Here's a quote from the guy cited in the article:

"What about the density of muscle vs. fat? We hear about this frequently in discussions of BMI (including in the Economist article I was responding to, which mentioned Olympic weight lifters), but it's a smaller effect. Muscle is about 18% denser than fat. This means that if you heroically exercised so much that you converted 10% of your body volume from fat to muscle (wow!), your BMI reading would go up just 1.8%. That's much less than the corrections just mentioned for short or tall people"

So that counters all you fatties claiming to be body builders. He has a new BMI calculator here.

tmo72: Here's a quote from the guy cited in the article:

"What about the density of muscle vs. fat? We hear about this frequently in discussions of BMI (including in the Economist article I was responding to, which mentioned Olympic weight lifters), but it's a smaller effect. Muscle is about 18% denser than fat. This means that if you heroically exercised so much that you converted 10% of your body volume from fat to muscle (wow!), your BMI reading would go up just 1.8%. That's much less than the corrections just mentioned for short or tall people"

So that counters all you fatties claiming to be body builders. He has a new BMI calculator here.

If you stayed the same volume. But bodybuilders are going to be thicker than average, it's just the thickness will be built from muscle.

You don't have to be Ronnie Coleman to have enough muscle mass to put you into the "overweight" category, though it's still a minority of people.

SacriliciousBeerSwiller: I love how critics of these labels like to use pro athletes who are in the peak of human fitness as counterpoints. With a BMI of 31, unless you too are a pro athlete with a 6-pack and an Adonis body, then sorry, you're just fat.

This. What's more depressing than the number of fat people is the pushback from fat people claiming they're not fat.

BMI correlates fine to body fat percentage for the vast majority of the population. It's just a number that tells you to stop lying about what you're seeing in the mirror.

moothemagiccow: Apparently the current system does not take into account that a person's weight grows with their height, giving taller people more room to bulge

I thought taking this into account was the entire point of BMI

wtf

I think the article didn't really phrase it properly. BMI does adjust for this, however it breaks down when you get to very short or very tall people. For the majority of heights this isn't really the case.

Apparently the current system does not take into account that a person's weight grows with their height, giving taller people more room to bulge

I thought taking this into account was the entire point of BMI

Mass goes up as a cube of height, the BMI uses a square. They couldn't find a convenient number to use that worked with the cube relationship.

BMI is a population measure. If we take people's builds to be normally distributed it works very well for the VAST majority of the population.

lol, no, it does not. BMI has so many problems with it I'm really surprised anyone uses it. The only people I see using it are lazy researchers (who don't want to bother measuring % body fat instead), or skinny people looking to pick on fat people.

While I admit I am overweight, I am not just shy of obese (My waist is still smaller than my hips or boobies - and I'm not that chesty). The BMI site that tmo72 linked said my ideal weight (at 5'8") was 123 - 166. I spent most of my teens and all of my 20s at 125 lbs and was considered a walking skeleton. It was most defiantly NOT a healthy weight. For my height and musculature 155-170 would be about right. Until they come up with a reasonable measure, people will simply not believe that there is a weight control epidemic, so they are hurting themselves more than if they found an honest way to rate people.

Hoban Washburne: As I understand it, BMI was created to measure weight/obesity in large populations.  It's not an extremely precise measurement for individuals.  The pro athlete argument does have some weaknesses since most people aren't peak athletes with tons of muscle mass.  However, there are shades of grey in terms of body type, bone structure, muscle mass, etc.  Having said that, if you're not super muscular and BMI says you're obese, you're probably at least overweight.

Bingo. BMI is a terrible measurement for individual health, but it's awesome for measuring large populations. It's very easy to look at driver's license data, for example, to get mean and median BMIs for a whole state.

People come in Fark threads and biatch about BMI, but they're missing the point. BMI isn't for determining whether I am healthier than you. It's for determining whether my city/county/state is, on average, healthier than your city/county/state.

Five years ago I was 5'5" and 155 pounds - and Jacked.

Now, I am the same height, the same weight, and Fat.

Life is funny.

HMS_Blinkin: Hoban Washburne: As I understand it, BMI was created to measure weight/obesity in large populations.  It's not an extremely precise measurement for individuals.  The pro athlete argument does have some weaknesses since most people aren't peak athletes with tons of muscle mass.  However, there are shades of grey in terms of body type, bone structure, muscle mass, etc.  Having said that, if you're not super muscular and BMI says you're obese, you're probably at least overweight.

Bingo. BMI is a terrible measurement for individual health, but it's awesome for measuring large populations. It's very easy to look at driver's license data, for example, to get mean and median BMIs for a whole state.

People come in Fark threads and biatch about BMI, but they're missing the point. BMI isn't for determining whether I am healthier than you. It's for determining whether my city/county/state is, on average, healthier than your city/county/state.

Oddly enough - everyone I know who points out that BMI doesn't work is either obviously fat or obviously in shape. I figure the fat people want to point out that they might 'not' be fat, since BMI can be wrong and the obviously in shape gym rats want to raise attention to how they are so loaded with muscle that they, like professional athletes, are so awesome BMI doesn't apply to them.

BMI is great for 95% of the population.

BMI is more accurate than meteorologists, economists, hedge fund managers, stock investors, sports betters, and countless others. It's a great system. We get it, there is a tiny subset of the population that it doesn't work well for - for example, someone with no legs.