Obesity is a societal failure. Not a personal one.

[benb]

Originally Posted by XXtwindad

The BMI is about xxtwindad. And benb. And all of us. It's the metric by which most Western medical practitioners gauge fitness. It's symptomatic of our shallow, harried cookie cutter approach to health. It's an antiquated standard that needs to be recalibrated.

Statistical measures do not have to fit 100% of the data set to be useful.

We all know people are on a bell curve. You are just mistaken if you think a substantial # of people are outside the bell curve enough to break BMI and yet are ultra low body fat elite athletes.

Hang around the NFL or Mr. Olympia or a strongman contest and everyone will have an Obese BMI and sub 10% body fat. It doesn't work there.

But it works for the population as a whole so it shouldn't be thrown away.

The problem is where the population fits on the curve. Most of the people now have an overweight or obese BMI. But if you plot % Body fat on a Bell curve you'd see that % Body Fat has shifted higher just as BMI has shifted higher.

We do not have an epidemic of people turning into heavily muscled sub-10% body fat individuals who break BMI... we have an epidemic of almost everyone's % BF and BMI have moved upwards in lock-step.

There is no need for you to make it personal unless your doctor is a twit and looks at your BMI and tells you that you have to lose weight and never gets to the step of considering your % Body Fat or your blood markers. I think that is mostly a strawman... who has actually gone to the doctor at 10% BF or less with overweight BMI and had that happen? If that happens you find a new doctor.

I'm only 10lbs or so off being "overweight" as well and my BF is in the 10% range even when I'm not cycling a ton. I have never had a doctor say a thing. And when I was in my early 20s I WAS overweight on BMI and was "overfat", I was more like 205 and not fit at all. And again the doctor never said a thing despite me being at least 15lbs over the limit.

[witcombusa]

Originally Posted by batman1425

Pretty broad brush there....

50 years of observation.

[R3awak3n]

on 1 person, dude your views of the world are barbaric at best

[batman1425]

Originally Posted by witcombusa

50 years of observation.

with N=1

[fourflys]

one point I'll remake from one of XX's previous posts..

the BMI chart was created solely by and for health insurance actuaries to help gauge what premium a person should have.. now I've been around long enough to know that when the accountants have a hand in anything they will always err on the side of who they are representing (as they should probably)..

just a thought..

[OtayBW]

Originally Posted by witcombusa

50 years of observation.

Sample size = 1.

[XXtwindad]

Originally Posted by benb

You made it personal in your very first post in the thread when you listed your body dimensions and then complained about BMI. Which is how you start every one of these threads.

Quoting again for the second time to show you how ridiculous you're being:



Either you're worried about it or you're not. Why are you so defensive about it? Why even start these threads? BMI is not about you and only you!

But if you're not trying to make it personal you need to realize someone else could have the same height and weight as you and most of the time they WILL be overweight as they won't be carrying the same amount of muscle versus fat.

Given you're a trainer you have to have seen this. Two people can be the same height and weight. One will be twice as strong as the other with half the fat. Most people in society are not that "twice as strong, half the fat" person.

Also open your eyes and get out the gym. Above about 21 "athletes' are a tiny percentage of the population as a whole. You could debate who gets to call themselves an "athlete" but most people won't fit the definition regardless of what you come up with.

Well, we absolutely agree here. Just for different reasons.

The gym is not necessarily the bastion of health and fitness marketers would have you believe. Lots of false fitness archetypes - particularly for women.

Years ago, I had a young (early twenties) client I'll call "M." M was about 5'10 and 330 pounds. Morbidly obese by any metric. After a year and change of working with both myself and a nutritionist, he got down to 240, which, granted, is still overweight, but represented tremendous progress. And he couldn't move below that number. For months, no matter how diligent the workouts (he was always consistent) or his eating regimen (I had no first hand knowledge of that but I consulted with his nutritionist regularly)

I have no idea what was going on there. But it's too easy just to say "personal failing." It's much more complex. I'm much better trying to figure out the issue from the perspective of my previous profession (as a journalist) than my current one. I also say this: even at 5'10 and 240, "M" was much fitter than someone who routinely deprived themselves of calories and didn't move. I know a few people like that.

One more note, for lack of a better term, "fat prejudice" is one of the last remaining acceptable forms of bigotry there is. I'm not immune to it myself. There was an article I recently read on how politics divides families, and all I could think about was "look how fat those people are." I'm not proud of that sentiment, but it's true.

[XXtwindad]

Originally Posted by echappist

Many of us here understands the intended usage of BMI. You are the only one here trying to paint a strawman usage of BMI and persisting with that perception. If your medical practitioner uses it in a prescriptive manner (as opposed to using it as one of many indicators), the suggestion would be to inform your practitioner the actual purpose of BMI and, failing that, switch practitioners.

It is not used to gauge fitness; rather, it's a metric used to see if any follow up is needed. Sometimes it generates false positives (in people with high proportions of muscle and low proportions of fat). Sometimes it generates false negatives (it cannot properly account for fat mass at the expense of reduced muscle mass). But on a population wide basis, it's not bad for a first-order estimate.

Certain parts of it could be remedied, e.g. by taking into account fat folds or waist measurements. Personally, I'd like to see BMI version 2 to take into account of such measurements, although the truth is that it isn't necessary for vast majority of the population.

Anything else to gauge fitness, whatever it may entail, is going to be more time consuming if not costly (e.g. dunk tests or DEXA scans)

It's perfectly fine to point out faults with BMI (as many here have acknowledged). Better question is that if it were to be "ditched immediately" as advocated by you, how do you plan to implement a better method that's not going to drastically increase time and cost?

And on a tangent, I always get told that my pulse is low (as compared to population-wide average). I tell my practitioner that I engage in aerobic endurance exercise, and the initial flag raised gets cleared. It should be no different in the case of a BMI reading (where a follow up explanation should clear the initial indication of "overweight BMI").

That's a very good question. I don't have an answer.

[CNY rider]

Regarding BMI charts, I had an analogous discussion with our pediatricians on several occasions in the past.
For those we haven't met in person, I'll tell you that our family is on the smaller side. I'm the hulk of the family at 5'6" 150 pounds.
At various times, as our children's height and weight were plotted on the standard childhood growth curves, it was pointed out to us that they were lagging behind in height and particularly in weight.
There was a definite implication that this was in some way unhealthy and that their calories needed to be increased.
So I asked where the data that led to the charts came from.
They didn't know, so I did some research.
The data was from "normal" children born in the late 1970's for the most part.
The same generation that has grown up to have incredible rates of obesity and ill health!
The next time it came up in the pediatrician's office we had a much more interesting conversation. And then they really didn't bring it up with us any more.

[BumbleBeeDave]

Originally Posted by mstateglfr

Obesity isn't solely a societal failure.
Obesity isn't solely an individual failure.

Claiming it is one or the other is simplistic when reality is complex.

- Society's acceptance of food at grocery stores that is largely deleterious is a societal failure.
- Society's willingness to heavily subsidize industry which produces unhealthy food is a societal(and governmental) failure.
- Society's acceptance of nutritious foods being replaced with junk in schools is a societal(and governmental) failure.
- Family's acceptance of quick/easy food which lacks nutrition and is high in sugar, salt, and fat is an individual failure.
- Family's refusal to teach portion control, healthy eating habits, and how to understand nutrition is an individual failure.
- Society's push over the last decade to normalize obesity and celebrate it is, while commendable because nobody should be treated poorly due to their size, still a failure because it ignoees the reality that so many avoidable health issues statistically come with obesity. Don't fat shame, but also don't fat celebrate. Both are, in my view, quite objectionable.

People overall want easy answers to complicated problems and don't want to take personal responsibility for anything, whether it's what they're eating, how their outrageous consumption is helping kill the planet, or being distracted on their phone as they run over and kill a cyclist who deserved it anyway because they weren't wearing a helmet or weren't on the bike trail "where they belong."

Many of the explanations outlined above by mstateglfr have their root in that. People want easy answers because self-discipline is hard. Personal responsibility is hard. Making truly lasting behavioral changes that are necessary for long term weight loss, fitness, and good health is hard. It's much easier to make self-justifying excuses (like "it's my genetics"), gobble "diet pills" engage in the latest pseudo-fitness fad for several weeks, play the fat shaming victim or just blame it on somebody/something else.

Between other jobs some years ago I got my certification and worked as a personal trainer for a year. It was incredibly frustrating to try to explain the simple "calories in vs. calories out" equation to so many clients because it meant they had to do something that took self-discipline, personal responsibility, and consistent behavior change–because they just didn't want to do any of those things. Our society has trained people (at least the fellow Americans I've seen) that they can avoid all of these things without paying a price, and so they just won't believe they are personally at fault or they personally need to do anything about it.

BBD

[jamesdak]

I'm blaming bike marketers! We use to think slim bike frame tubes, elegant skinny chainrings and skinny pointed rims were the way to go.

Now they say those fat bloated C.F. frames with lumpy cranksets and wide U shaped rims are the ticket.

So is it my fault if I try to emulate that with my body? I say NOT!!!

[2LeftCleats]

BMI is a screening tool. It isn’t perfect, but it’s a useful starting point. What I haven’t seen mentioned here is the use of waist-to-hip ratio, which some studies have concluded may be a better health predictor. Based on XXTwindad’s photo, I suspect his WHR puts him in a healthy category.

[mjf]

Originally Posted by 2LeftCleats

BMI is a screening tool. It isn’t perfect, but it’s a useful starting point. What I haven’t seen mentioned here is the use of waist-to-hip ratio, which some studies have concluded may be a better health predictor. Based on XXTwindad’s photo, I suspect his WHR puts him in a healthy category.

Agreed. It's another data point to add to the list. BMI is a useful baseline tool to use for a population, not a sample, who fall within normal ranges.

I can paint one broad stroke here. If you, a physician, clinician or otherwise, are relying exclusively on one data point such as BMI to determine your health, the job is not being done properly.

I feel like a lot of this thread is primarily being driven by the OP being salty that he's being defined as overweight, and refuses to get over the label. You clearly have a better understanding of what being healthy means, and understand that BMI in context doesn't have any appreciable meaning for more athletic people.

Why are you so hung up on it?

[lavi]

Originally Posted by mjf

I feel like a lot of this thread is primarily being driven by the OP being salty that he's being defined as overweight, and refuses to get over the label. You clearly have a better understanding of what being healthy means, and understand that BMI in context doesn't have any appreciable meaning for more athletic people.

Why are you so hung up on it?

I don't know the OP personally, but I don't think this is what was in his mind.

From some interactions, and other threads, these are interesting topics for general discussion. Dude is not worried about what others, or the BMI chart, say about his body composition. It's about relevant, interesting convos on an interwebs forum with a group of different people.

[RoosterCogset]

Ban the Big Gulp!