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It's really not a terrible indicator for health despite this argument getting trotted out every time the subject of BMI comes up on the internet. Obviously, as
by rcar 10y ago
It's really not a terrible indicator for health despite this argument getting trotted out every time the subject of BMI comes up on the internet. Obviously, as you pointed out, there's individuals for whom BMI is inaccurate but they represent a very small portion of the whole population. At a population level, it tracks very nicely with health outcomes.
If you're a powerlifter or a sprinter, don't change your habits just because your BMI is high. On the flip side, if you sit behind a desk all day, don't blame a high BMI on the metric being inaccurate.
- yomly 10y agoThe metric is very convenient and a useful rule of thumb which is therefore perhaps useful for some proportion of the general population: especially for those with limited medical knowledge and/or equipment - but it's really not a niche minority who is unaccounted for by the BMI. Muscle density and bone density, amongst other factors, will vary by ethnicity enough that researchers are discussing the value of one singular set of windows for the BMI[0], and although I don't have evidence I would also say that it really doesn't take much exercise for a person to skew their BMI by a noticeable amount - I would venture the top 30% of all exercisers would see their BMI affected by their habits. So while there is value in the BMI for being easy to collect its data and make recommendations based on its value, in this day and age you'd really expect a more granular and precise measurement for use in research and disseminating health information. It shouldn't be such a big leap for smartwatches / fitbits to measure body fat %, for example. [0]http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19221673?dopt=Citation http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19221673?dopt=Citation