3 ms·
No I’m not overweight, that’s the point. But I could be statistically counted as being overweight when my weight is recorded at a doctor visit. I don’t have a
by fingerlocks 4y ago
No I’m not overweight, that’s the point. But I could be statistically counted as being overweight when my weight is recorded at a doctor visit.
I don’t have a particularly abnormal body, which leads me to believe there is a large margin of error when measuring the number of overweight people.
“Looking around” and personally observing is wrought with bias. I’d prefer we use a more useful metric than BMI to get an accurate data on obesity.
- bscphil 4y ago> I don’t have a particularly abnormal body, which leads me to believe there is a large margin of error when measuring the number of overweight people The NYT looked at this and found that BMI is more likely to underestimate body fat than overestimate it. So while your experience is valid, when you look at the population as a whole, BMI tends to be a problem because it convinces unhealthy people that they're healthy rather than the other way around. (That said, it's split by gender. Men are slightly more likely to be healthy with "overweight" BMIs than vice versa, but women are significantly more likely to have excess body fat at a "healthy" BMI than vice versa.) https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/cp/summer-of-science-2015/latest/how-often-is-bmi-misleading https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/cp/summer-of-sc...