BMI....is it a load of shit?

The waist thing, I always feel that works out unfair for tall women like me (6ft,)

It's helpful to know with other facts as well like the size of your waist and hips. If your waist is 26-27 inches then you're not fat no matter what your weight is. If your waist is 36-37 inches then you're obese.

People are three dimensional. Weight will broadly scale with height cubed , whereas bmi uses height squared. It also doesn't take muscle and bone into account. It seems reasonable for looking at changes in populations but it's too coarse for individuals, really.

A lot of rugby player types have definite gut, when you look at them properly.

The clinical definition of obese ( BMI over 30) is that your weight is likely to be having an adverse effect on your health - joints, heart rate, effectiveness of insulin in body to mention but a few. This is cumulative so the higher your BMI the greater the effect.
BMI is a rough guide but it's pretty accurate indicator. It goes wrong with rugby player type men - big muscular builds. I think it was originally compiled from weights taken at women's slimming clubs.

I find there is something off about it as well.
dh is 6'2" with big bones (think ex rugby player); wide knee caps, wide elbows, wide shoulders.
he's suppose to be 145-194 based on bmi. at 200 he looks gaunt.

I think bmi can be misleading.

I'm bang in the middle for the "healthy" range for my age height weight, but I can tell you I'm bony, hardly any fat even where it counts (think fried eggs), not heavily muscled. Realistically, my bmi should reflect that. Skinny is not healthy & certainly not fit - which everyone assumes I am because I'm lean.

I've recently joined a gym to get fit & gain some muscle. There's quite a few large-size ladies training and they put me to shame - their stamina is amazing.

BMI is not perfect for everyone, but it's a good indication for most people.

Fenella, obese is a BMI of 30 or over.

It is a good guide combined with waist measurement which is an indicator of visceral fat.
When my bmi was 22 I was certainly not slim.

I wish clothes weren't so misleading. Stretchy skinnies are the stuff of the Devil. I'm sitting in a pair of 8s right now. My waist measurement is 30-32! How can that be, exactly? .

Good for the ego though. I know, deep down, I'm not slim. I'm ok, but no, not slim.

I think BMI provides a good broad guide for most people. For my height there's more than a 2 stone spread of healthy weights for those of different builds etc.

Very few everyday non-athlete people will have overweight/obese BMIs because of muscle, especially women. At the peak of her career Jessica Ennis-Hill's BMI was only 21.6 and she's visibly muscular.

You can definitely be overweight by BMI and yet active and sporty.

I can't get comfortable with people saying that a BMI of 24.9 is definitely not "overweight" or that 25.1 is barely overweight.

If my BMI was 24.7 I'd be 20 lbs heavier than now, & no way I'd find myself anything but overweight. I don't think many women can carry an extra 20lbs above BMI=21/22 without it being mostly unhelpful flab.

25.4 is at the very lower end of overweight, nowhere near obese.

Oh I must have it wrong then because my BMI was 25.4 and I remember being annoyed by it!

Fenella 10st 9lbs at 5'5" gives you a BMI of 24.7. Definitely not obese.

ragged 10 stone 9. I'm very hourglass and did a lot of sport at the time, both things for which BMI is notoriously unreliable.

I have a 26" waist and am quite muscular. I weight train 5x a week as well as doing lots of cardio and endurance. My BMI is 20.1.

I think as a general tool, it's okay. Outliers are to be expected but I think the majority of people coming up as obese will be obese.

I'd never use it as a measure of fitness or health personally. I look at my body fat % and cardio fitness for a better indication of how I'm doing.

I'll bite, Fenella. What was your weight with the 26" waist.

I am 5'5. When I had a 26 inch waist and wore size 8/10 skinny jeans, I was supposedly still obese according to my BMI.

You can be fat and quite fit, unless you are stacked like a muscle machine then you probably have too much chub. Bmi has a big range and though blunt there are few outliers who live normal lives. I am at the top end of mine and very wobbly at the moment - I can still run but honestly am better at it with 20lbs off and still easily within my bmi. Also have a pretty big frame and giant feet - couldn't ever be at the lower end happily

Bmi is already a range to account for the normal range of body shapes. It's unlikely that you are one of the outliers, purely on the exertion required to chase after a toddler, unless you are physically very much out of the ordinary.

I was bordering on obese in my late 20s and happily spent all day on my feet at work then often went for a long walk, in the evening.

In my late 40s, now and after steadily gaining weight again, reaching a stone less than my peak in my 20s, I found myself really struggling with the same 1km uphill walk back from the local school that I'd been doing 2 or 3 times a day for the past decade. My feet hurt and I was getting sweaty and out of breath.

You have to ask yourself honestly whether you think you can stay fit and healthy at your current weight, as well as being honest with yourself about whether it is stable, right now, or slowly increasing.

I thought BMI was inaccurate and I am just a heavy/muscular build. Then looked at DD and took a proper look at myself and realised that with a 28 ribcage and relatively small wrists my frame couldn't be that big and the fact that I am top end of overweight can't just be muscle.

Oh yes, the waist measurement is important because it measures how much internal fat you've got or something.

Mine's pushing 32. I'm middle-aged, but that's still getting too big, apparently.

Mmm...I dunno. There has to be a more accurate way of measuring your body though. Can you still get those caliper thingies that pinch your flesh?

I agree that Bmi is a blunt instrument perhaps but probably works as a guide.

I don't weight so don't know what my BMI is; I go more by feel, clothes, how much flesh I can pinch etc.