Calculating my BMI. Does this make me look fat?

At this website (National Institutes of Health) there is a BMI calculator.

This BMI calculator gives me a BMI just .2 below obesity. (6ft 0 in, 220 lbs). If I gained just one pound (and for all I know, I gain and lose the requisite pound daily) I’d be obese.

But… that’s just wrong. There’s no way I could be called obese, at least not according to conversational usage. (By this I mean, no one would say about me behind my back “That guy’s obese” or even “That guy’s fat.”)

What up with this? What does “obese” mean to the National Institutes of Health, other than “having a weight over such and such ratio to height.” Is my life in danger? Or what?

Actual scientists are calling me fat and I want to know why. :eek: :stuck_out_tongue:


I’ve just done some more experimenting. It says that at 137 lbs (still 6 feet tall) I would be “normal.” (At 136 I would be underweight.)

137 lbs at 6 ft counts, even as “borderline,” normal? I mean, I would think a 140 lb 6 ft man is starving to death (wouldn’t I?).

Normal for me is supposed to be anywhere from 137 to 183. The average here is 160. 160? That seems like a really ridiculous ideal. But am I just spoiled or something?

What is going on here? The more I think about this, the more its bothering me. Maybe I shouldn’t let it get to me maybe?


My wife has just reminded me that when she met me ten years ago, I weighed 180, and that when she met me, people would often comment on how skinny I was. That’s right! So were people just wrong to think I was skinny or something? Is it just that we’re so used to fat people, a nearly overweight person looks skinny?

I’d show you guys some pictures to judge for yourself, but until very recently I haven’t dressed in a way which showed much about what the body beneath looks like. (Baggy clothes. A (bad) habit I picked up back in High School.) Pictures really would be deceptive in this case.

-FrL-

First, BMI is based on statistics, not aesthetics. IIRC, women can handle a few bulges much better than men can, but it doesn’t mean they will look good doing so.
Second, in the United States, the threshhold for what constitutes “fat” in men is way, way lax. I note you didn’t mention your waist size.
Third, you may be an exception to the BMI rule, but unless you work out like a horse, in all probability you are not.

I don’t know much about BMI, but I’ve always understood 6’0" and 180# to be the baseline of average. No way should you be 140.

BMI is statistically useful (i.e., to analyze a large sample of the population) but not necessarily applicable on an individual basis. The key deficiency is that it doesn’t take into account what proportion of your body weight is fat. You could be a very flabby 180 and a highly muscular 200 lbs. at 6 feet tall.

Age is also a factor also. People normally “soften up” with age.

Waist to hips circumference is a better indicator of being too fat (the real health risk), or some other way to determine your body fat percentage.

BMI is just as faulty as weight alone. If you have a lot of muscle, a large bone structure, or are just built in certain ways, you’ll look different.

this one has more information on it and this one tells you what pecentile you’re in (and your body type. Mine is, apparently, “check your number”) this one is for men.

people just carry it differently. I don’t know if that means anything for your health or not, but I know- for example, I look like I weigh more than I do. So when my BMI was 17, I didn’t look underweight.

There are so many things going into BMI that it is confusing as all hell at this point. The index itself is meant to give an easy way to figure out the ideal weight for health purposes. However, there is evidence that people that fall into the “overweight” range of the BMI chart live the longest. If that holds true, I am not sure what the point will be. We may just want a Jiggle-N-Droop O’Meter to assess visual carnage in an easy to read format.

I agree that that I have no idea where they got the numbers at the lower end unless there were a lot of 1980’s style Ethiopians on the committee. I am 6’1’’ and I went through hell in high school when I couldn’t gain weight fast enough. I drank weight gain shakes and ate everything I could and just payed to gain a pound. I was 155 then. That web page just smiles and says that 140 would be quite a fine weight for me. Ummm, no. I hate it when flies buzz all around me. It just wouldn’t be fitting and I am not especially large framed or overly athletic either.

I wear a 38 waist in jeans. I’m not sure what this tells me.

-FrL-

Well, I’m 6’, 230#, 36 waist, pretty muscular, but I’m pretty darn muscular. Obese is just the medical term for fat, and many people confuse it with morbidly obese. IIRC, “obese” is 30 lbs overweight. I’d say I’m pretty darn borderline myself. Although, I’m in pretty good cardiovascular shape, also. It’s very subjective.

BMI on its own is a poor indicator of how a person looks, because overall appearance also takes into account bone structure and body type (ecto- endo- mesomorph), which can have a dramatic effect on one person to the next.

These days, waist measurement is considered in some circles to be more important than BMI. Others state both must be considered. Forinfo on both.

BMIs are evil. I am 5"8’ and 165 lbs. My BMI is 25.1. My ribcage alone is 39 inches around, and you can see my ribs through my skin sometimes. I am actually pretty thin for my body shape, but according to the BMI calculator, I am overweight. It killls me when people use it for comparison because I personally don’t think it holds much merit.

The BMI calculator doesn’t work for everyone, particularly if one does not have an “average” body shape. (What Gorgonzola said, but less eloquently.)

If I go to any of those BMI calculators and plug in my height (5’4") and the weight at which my periods start getting irregular for lack of body fat, they still say I should lose 10 pounds. I have tiny hands and feet, very wide hips, short legs and a lot more muscle than most people guess.

Spoilered because it’s not language for the weak of stomach:

The BMI is welcome to kiss my used nappies, so long as I get to use them regularly and relatively painlessly.

I asked about this recently.

BMI may be reasonable references across large populations, but it’s not terribly useful for me.

I’m a bit under 6’ 3" and weigh about 228 at the moment. I have a 37- or 38-inch waist (can fit in 38’s comfortably, can fit into some 36’s). I am pretty muscular (bench pressed 400 pounds this year for the first time :), and I have weight trained religiously, all major muscle groups for years). I run 4 times a week–including a quick run (for me) once a week, where I try to break 8.5-minute miles for 20 minutes; and a long run (for me) of 5 - 7 miles where I try to break 9.5-minute miles. I have been in better shape in my life, and I expect that each of these stats will improve, based on prior experience. I still have a bit more flab in my lower abdomen (a bad place for it, I know) than I’d prefer, but nothing any reasonable person would describe as fat.

I’m guessing another 5 - 10 pounds and I will be at a pretty ideal weight. And I do mean ideal, in that I don’t believe anyone would think of me as overweight right now, right at my current weight, and if I lose more than 5 - 10 pounds, I believe I’d be losing principally muscle. I am in very good shape for the average guy and great shape for a 45-year-old guy, if I do say so myself.

According to the BMI, I am at the upper end of the range for overweight–6 more pounds and I’d be obese. I’d need to lose 34 pounds to slide down to the very top of the normal weight range. I could lose 84 pounds and still be at the bottom of the normal range.

These do not compute. I do not have 34 pounds to lose (definitely don’t have 84 pounds to lose). Again, just my experience, but BMI is useless. And that 40-inch rule re: waistlines is pretty broad, too. A 40-inch waist for someone 6’ 5" is a bit different than for a guy who is 5’ 8", isn’t it?

I’d like to see a chart that shows BMI / waistline combinations compared to height / weight combinations, within 3 basic body types (slim, average, muscular, maybe?). A chart that shows the same breakpoints (over- and under-weight, normal, and obese). That would be interesting. Anyone aware of such a thing?

Ah, but Stratocaster, the BMI sites and docs explicitly state that “these are not valid if you work out a lot”.

Ooo… k…

I know, I agree. It’s a site that basically says, “you can safely downgrade the warning here if your waistline isn’t too big, and you don’t have a lot of health risks, like high cholesterol, etc.” Well, duh. That’s real helpful.

My first encounter with BMI was at 15. Making a pretty long story short, it sparked the doctor into spearheading a movement to:

  • stop comparing Hispanic people to charts based on English data,
  • figure out other, hopefully-better measurements

They’re still working on it. But being told “shit, according to the charts you’re amorphous!” was kind of an interesting teenage moment. Mind you, he followed it by switching from the “doctor brain” to the “young guy watching the chicks go by brain” and the young guy said I looked “de puuu… uh, I mean, I don’t think your daughter is overweight at all after all, ma’am”

IOW, how your body behaves seems to be the only real good measurement.

Yeah, those measurements are nuts, even for someone of slight build. At 5’9" and 150 lbs., I’m pretty thin (due entirely to lucky genes, rather than exercise or clean living), and according to that thing I could lose twenty-five pounds and still be “normal.”

No. No way. Here is a photo of me; if I lost 25 pounds, people would call 911 when they saw me coming.

The issue is not whether you’re skinny or fit. The issue, I gather is the problem with omentum .

I can’t speak for you personally, since I don’t know what you look like. But I am really starting to believe this statement is true, at least around Michigan, where I live. Look at photos from 50 years ago, see if your parents have a college yearbook or something. Everyone looks really skinny compared to now. I think 10-20 pounds extra on people is something we are just used to, and people who are not overweight are now considered “skinny” when they used to just be average or normal.

Remember too that BMI is not a judgement on your appearance. It is telling you a certain mathematical ratio. Statistics show that once that ratio is over a certain number you are at increased risk for certain diseases and health problems, not that you will look a certain way. As others have pointed out, there are other things you should take into consideration, and waist measurement is another indicator of how at risk you are.

It is not meant to be a clear line that you cross over and suddenly you are going to die of heart disease. As you have noticed, one pound either way suddenly puts you in a new category. It is one tool that you take into consideration.

Personally, when I realized my BMI was pushing 25 I was worried, at only 29 I didn’t think it should be that high and I was worried it was just going to keep creeping up. I got it down to 22 without dieting, I just improved my eating habits to things I should be doing anyway and started exercising regularly. No one called me fat before, but I sure look a lot better without those 20 pounds. Tall people (I am 5’11") I think can carry weight better so people don’t think we look fat, but that doesn’t mean the weight is good for us. I only went down about one size, maybe two, whereas a shorter person probably would have gone down 3-4 sizes losing the same amount.

When you are borderline, no one is going to freak out and think you are a whale, but I think it is a sign that things could be improved. If you are eating healthy and getting enough exercise and still at that weight, that is one thing, but if you are pretty sedentary and eat whatever you want then maybe it is a sign that your health as a whole could be improved.