:smack:
I was looking at the male chart on one, and the female chart on another.
There is a little tag on the small of your back that also has cleaning directions and a materials list. Don’t tell me you lost yours? It’s against the law to take it off.
I don’t know if it really means anything, but a rough test of frame size is circling your wrist at the bone with your thumb and index finger. If they overlap, you have a small frame, if the tips touch, you have and medium frame, and if they don’t touch at all, you have a large frame.
According on that chart, I was overweight on a large frame on May 26, 2001, at 5’8", 175 lbs.
That day, I ran a 4:17 mile.
I rest my case.
Well, it works ok for me, but I’ve always been on the thinish side. I don’t think I would take it very seriously.
Agreed. In fact, I would have made the same post verbatim but you already did it for me.
Of course, I don’t enjoy eating, and am not familiar with the concept of “comfort food”, so being thin is what I struggle against. I can easily drop to 20 pounds below my charted minimum, but I’m currently only about 5 pounds below the minimum.
OK, then according to that, I’m a medium.
Which is good, because that is what the tag on my back says too.
I always considered myself to be skinny, with everyone else around me considering the same, so that chart is atleast somewhat accurate. It says I should gain between 20-40 pounds. Hey, I’m not arguing, I just don’t take it too seriously. The day when it tells me how to gain weight, however - that is when I’ll take it more seriously.
The first chart indicated that I was obese (110 lbs overweight) and the BMI thingie has me at 40 and apparently I am morbidly obese. I am 6’ 1" and weigh 305 lbs, I have a 19 inch neck, I wear size 14 EEE shoes and a size 54 tall jacket so I think that these folks need to expand the chart a little for us “big folks”.
P.S. I think that I am about 40 lbs overweight, not 110!
Unclviny
Hmpfff. Apparently no women are more than 6’ tall, either. And I have no idea what size ‘frame’ I am…
Hmmm… Well, apparently I have a large frame then. And that puts me in at over 10lb underweight. That thing is definitely off. I’m curvy! There’s no way in hell I’m underweight. I fit in fine for a “small frame,” but I have swimmers shoulders (well, gymnasts’ shoulders) and I’m pretty muscly*.
It’s all bull, in my opinion.
*That spelling just looks wrong…
The BMI has me at 18, and the charts say that at 5’ 7" tall and 115 lbs., I’m about 10 pounds underweight. On the other hand, I exercise daily, have a healthy heart, muscle tone, and blood chemistry, so I don’t really fit into the general categories there.
Geez, 133? Yeah, that’s my goal, but apparently I’m a small frame according to the wrist test and they have that as my maximum! And I’ve got 10 pounds to lose to get there. Nutz to this.
According to the top chart, I’m on the heavy end of normal (6’4", 187 lbs, medium frame), but on the color chart, I’m smack dab in the middle of normalcy.
At my highest weight (210), on the top chart, I would’ve been considered too heavy even if I was large framed. But on the bottom chart, 210 for a 6’4" male is still considered ‘normal.’
Am I getting this right?
Happy
People misuse the BMI a lot. It is one indicator that fits the bulk of the curve, but there are an awful lot of people at the ends of the bell. It doesn’t fit many people who are in good shape since having more muscle mass than average throws off the whole scale. It doesn’t fit non-Europeans very well since Asians have lower and Africans have higher bone density than the average person of European descent. It’s basically only good for indicating the average health of a large population, as people have said earlier.
Body fat is a much better indicator than BMI, but you’ve got to get good measurements. I’ve found from experience that those body fat scales and impedance gadgets are close to worthless for measuring body fat. I’ve lost about 10 kg (22 lbs.) since starting a workout program last year. I’ve lost at least 10 cm (about 3-4 in.) in the waist and have gained noticeable amounts of muscle. The Tanita body fat scale I got last August has registered a change of about 2 percent in body fat; down to 24 percent from 26 percent. No way did I lose only 2 percent and no way am I still at 24 percent body fat. I’m down to mid teens by now. I used another body fat calculator on the net, based on body measurements, and found that I was 6.6 percent, which is also ludicrous.
I ordered calipers recently so I should get a better measurement soon. Too bad I didn’t have them before so I could find out exactly how fat I actually was before I started getting back in shape.
I’m 6’5", 160-165ish, which would be on the low end of their scale, but despite what someone said, I don’t look “emaciated” at all and I do indeed have a modest amount of muscle-mass. Last spring I bench-pressed 220lbs, which is a hell of a lot more (especially relatively speaking) than a lot of bigger guys can put up.
At 5’ 9" and my weight fluctuating between 115-120 pounds, that chart puts me at being underweight. Nothing new to me… I’ve always been really thin. The only time I’ve ever gained weight was when I was pregnant and I gained 60 with my first baby and 65 pounds with my second baby! 7-8 months later I was right back down to 110 pounds. It’s only in the last year that I’ve managed to gain any weight.
I’ve always heard that women that are 5 feet tall should weigh about 100 pounds and you add 5 pounds for every inch you are that’s above 5 feet. According to that I should weight 145 pounds. I don’t think that’s accurate. I’ve seen myself at 145 pounds (3 months after giving birth) and I was a size 10 with a double chin, a fat face and belly rolls. Not ideal IMO. I’m much more comfortable at 120 and size 6!
damn. i’m 6’-1" or 2" with a medium build, and i’m supposed to be down around 175? my dad weighs 175, and he’s damn skinny. like no chest, no ass, and tiny legs skinny. and that’s at the top end of their scale. i used to weigh around 210 and i felt a little overweight, but i didn’t have a pot belly or double chin or anything. if i had more muscle i would have been fine with that weight.
right now i’m sitting at 190 and feel pretty thin. even in high school, when i had my growth spurt, i weighed right at 170, and i was a stick. i have a friend that is a marathon runner, and at 6’-3" weighs about 155, and apparently he’s in the right range, according to the chart. but he’s about the skinniest person i’ve ever seen.
I think the OP’s question need to be modified: Where on the Body-mass-index scale do you fall, and how active are you?
I’m about 5’8" and 142 pounds at the moment, that makes me somwhere between 22 and 23 on the Index. I also cycle for a minimum of 2 hours a week, walk briskly for about an hour, and I usually lift weights for about another 2 hours a week.
If I managed to bulk up to 160 pounds because I hit the gym with more frequency, and I’m walking around with a BMI of 24+, that’s a hell of a lot different than if I pack on 18 pounds of fat on my frame. If I did that, I’d be my dad, who has a developed a massive potbelly in the past decade, but can still run just as fast as I can.
Down by law by my math your friend has a BMI of 19.5, which is on the skinny side of the range.