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This is a key point. BMI by itself is not an accurate indication of a person's health. I often see discussions freely interchange being overweight with being un

This is a key point. BMI by itself is not an accurate indication of a person's health. I often see discussions freely interchange being overweight with being unhealthly, even though we only have data for some types of health conditions correlating with higher body weight. To my knowledge, there is no single score or data point that can be used to accurately assess an individual's health.

quanticle 15y ago
>I often see discussions freely interchange being overweight with being unhealthly, even though we only have data for some types of health conditions correlating with higher body weight. It's true, not all health conditions are correlated with being overweight. However, a good many of the deadliest health conditions, including heart disease, stroke, cancer, and diabetes are very well correlated with weight. Saying we should discount the effect of weight on health because my weight doesn't predict my susceptibility to car accidents strikes me as misguided. >To my knowledge, there is no single score or data point that can be used to accurately assess an individual's health. That's true, but it's also meaningless. There isn't a single score that allows you to predict everything. But, for most people, BMI correlates quite well with the "big-three" medical ailments: heart disease, stroke, cancer. I think that's valuable enough.
- onemoreact 15y ago
  Slightly overweight 40+ year old people live longer than underweight or overweight people. Ideal weight vs Overweight is fairly even with some study's showing slightly overweight being heather. http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.c7aaeb7940626693fa418a1eab2291f6.81 http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.c7aaeb7940626693... http://www.oregonlive.com/health/index.ssf/2009/06/portland_researchers_find_slig.html http://www.oregonlive.com/health/index.ssf/2009/06/portland_... PS: This difference could be social vs physical with more active people taking more risks in their daily lives.
- king_jester 15y ago
  > Saying we should discount the effect of weight on health because my weight doesn't predict my susceptibility to car accidents strikes me as misguided. It's not my intention to make such a statement. BMI does have a usage, but it's more nuanced that most people realize and I wished to point that out. > But, for most people, BMI correlates quite well with the "big-three" medical ailments: heart disease, stroke, cancer. Do you have any more information or citations for this? It was my understanding that BMI alone was not enough of a predictor for certain ailments and conditions and that usually medical professionals also look at additional risk factors in conjunction with BMI, such as family history or habits like smoking.
CWuestefeld 15y ago
More to the point, BMI by itself is not an accurate indication of a person's status with respect to weight. BMI boils down to a ratio of weight to height. The fact that this definition doesn't include the word "fat" ought to be a clue that it won't be entirely successful as a measure of a person's fatness. In particular, because muscle tissue is significantly denser than fat. Thus, a couch potato and an athlete, each having the same height and girth, will score such that the couch potato will have a better BMI score than the athlete: BMI penalizes exercise to the extent that it generates muscle mass. A much more informative measurement would be the body fat percentage. But even this falls down. Apparently there are two kinds of fat. Subcutaneous fat poses little health risk. Internal fat, surrounding the organs, is where the potential problems begin.
- mlinsey 15y ago
  This is true, but overcomplicating things for most people. You'd have to be a serious bodybuilder to get to the "obese" range of the BMI chart and have that be healthy. The density of muscle is higher than fat but not so much higher (1.06 g/L vs. .9 g/L) to be able to get you to obese levels without looking like a pro wrestler. The lower half of the "overweight" range is more ambiguous, but statistically speaking the health risks for this range are much less as well (and some studies have determined people in that range to be on average healthier than those in the normal range, perhaps because it includes more physically active people with more muscle). But if your BMI is at a level associated with severe physical health risks (30+ and especially 35+), it's unlikely that muscles are the explanation unless that's obvious.
  - yummyfajitas 15y ago
    To be "obese", maybe you need to be a serious bodybuilder, but being overweight is pretty easy. My numbers: 6'5", 233lb, BMI 27.6 (solidly overweight), squat 180, bench 160, press 120, snatch 90. All numbers are 5 rep work sets except snatch, which is 3 rep work set. ORM might be higher. The problem is that BMI was designed for sedentary people. It's a good guideline, but it's no substitute for a pinch test.
  - tdfx 15y ago

quanticle 15y ago

>I often see discussions freely interchange being overweight with being unhealthly, even though we only have data for some types of health conditions correlating with higher body weight. It's true, not all health conditions are correlated with being overweight. However, a good many of the deadliest health conditions, including heart disease, stroke, cancer, and diabetes are very well correlated with weight. Saying we should discount the effect of weight on health because my weight doesn't predict my susceptibility to car accidents strikes me as misguided. >To my knowledge, there is no single score or data point that can be used to accurately assess an individual's health. That's true, but it's also meaningless. There isn't a single score that allows you to predict everything. But, for most people, BMI correlates quite well with the "big-three" medical ailments: heart disease, stroke, cancer. I think that's valuable enough.

onemoreact 15y ago
Slightly overweight 40+ year old people live longer than underweight or overweight people. Ideal weight vs Overweight is fairly even with some study's showing slightly overweight being heather. http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.c7aaeb7940626693fa418a1eab2291f6.81 http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.c7aaeb7940626693... http://www.oregonlive.com/health/index.ssf/2009/06/portland_researchers_find_slig.html http://www.oregonlive.com/health/index.ssf/2009/06/portland_... PS: This difference could be social vs physical with more active people taking more risks in their daily lives.
king_jester 15y ago
> Saying we should discount the effect of weight on health because my weight doesn't predict my susceptibility to car accidents strikes me as misguided. It's not my intention to make such a statement. BMI does have a usage, but it's more nuanced that most people realize and I wished to point that out. > But, for most people, BMI correlates quite well with the "big-three" medical ailments: heart disease, stroke, cancer. Do you have any more information or citations for this? It was my understanding that BMI alone was not enough of a predictor for certain ailments and conditions and that usually medical professionals also look at additional risk factors in conjunction with BMI, such as family history or habits like smoking.

CWuestefeld 15y ago

More to the point, BMI by itself is not an accurate indication of a person's status with respect to weight. BMI boils down to a ratio of weight to height. The fact that this definition doesn't include the word "fat" ought to be a clue that it won't be entirely successful as a measure of a person's fatness. In particular, because muscle tissue is significantly denser than fat. Thus, a couch potato and an athlete, each having the same height and girth, will score such that the couch potato will have a better BMI score than the athlete: BMI penalizes exercise to the extent that it generates muscle mass. A much more informative measurement would be the body fat percentage. But even this falls down. Apparently there are two kinds of fat. Subcutaneous fat poses little health risk. Internal fat, surrounding the organs, is where the potential problems begin.

mlinsey 15y ago
This is true, but overcomplicating things for most people. You'd have to be a serious bodybuilder to get to the "obese" range of the BMI chart and have that be healthy. The density of muscle is higher than fat but not so much higher (1.06 g/L vs. .9 g/L) to be able to get you to obese levels without looking like a pro wrestler. The lower half of the "overweight" range is more ambiguous, but statistically speaking the health risks for this range are much less as well (and some studies have determined people in that range to be on average healthier than those in the normal range, perhaps because it includes more physically active people with more muscle). But if your BMI is at a level associated with severe physical health risks (30+ and especially 35+), it's unlikely that muscles are the explanation unless that's obvious.
- yummyfajitas 15y ago
  To be "obese", maybe you need to be a serious bodybuilder, but being overweight is pretty easy. My numbers: 6'5", 233lb, BMI 27.6 (solidly overweight), squat 180, bench 160, press 120, snatch 90. All numbers are 5 rep work sets except snatch, which is 3 rep work set. ORM might be higher. The problem is that BMI was designed for sedentary people. It's a good guideline, but it's no substitute for a pinch test.
- tdfx 15y ago