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Visualizing BMI's “Blind Spots”

• npsimons 12y ago
  BMI is a simplistic, general indicator of relative size, one of many, and it's main purpose is be more accurate than body weight alone. For the majority of people it's correct. Almost every time I hear someone complain about it, they use the same old tired excuses ("it's muscle!", "it doesn't take enough factors into account!", "I'm big boned!", etc). Why would anyone care? Because unfortunately science has gone and proven common sense true in the form of correlation between being overweight/obese and higher health risks and lowered longevity. So while BMI may not have started as a health indicator, it's now linked as one. Look, unless you are bodybuilding heavily or a professional/elite athlete, the BMI is probably pretty accurate. If you don't think it's good enough you can always do other measurements, such as body fat percentage or waist circumference, or hell, even get a blood panel done (cholesterol, glucose, etc). For example, my BMI was 26.3 at one point in time. My waist was also 40inches, and I was pinching 52mm on my belly, so yeah, BMI was spot on. Thankfully, weight loss is possible, and I'm down to a BMI of 21.4, along with improving my functional fitness greatly.