NHS remove the ‘sex’ discriminator from their bmi calculator

But you are still in the HEALTHY range so why complain about this?

It’s not a flaw though, because the healthy range is just that - a range. So a BMI range of 20-25 takes account of different body types.

BMI doesn’t and never has taken body composition into account, so the fact that women carry more fat than men is irrelevant in the calculation. I have a fair bit more muscle than many women my age, and low body fat. The BMI calculators don’t ask for this information so my BMI is at the upper end of the healthy range (approaching ‘overweight’), despite my body fat being about 18-20%

It’s why BMI is of little interest and relevance to some people, including me.

I agree, it’s basically saying that mentioning the existence of biological sex isn’t “inclusive” enough.

I didn’t say there isn’t a difference in body composition between sexes, just that this is not part of the BMI formula or thresholds

I have been losing weight for about 18 months, I’ve been periodically using the NHS BMI calculator and it has not asked for my sex at all during that time frame. I don’t think this is any kind of a recent change.

A woman and a man with the same BMI will have different muscle and fat ratios, which is to be expected given that women carry more fat than men. It doesn’t destroy the usefulness of BMI as an indicator of health.

Yes it’s weird - they require sex for BMI calculation for children under 18 so what happens to the sex difference after that? It obviously doesn’t disappear.

I've just had a quick look at a number of online BMI calculators - medical sites, slimming sites, healthy living sites - and most of them only ask for height and weight; one of the had a 'gender - optional' box.

So if the NHS now ask only for height and weight, this would appear to be standard practice. It's the reasons they give for doing so that make me go 😡

I'm guessing that, since the calculation doesn't take individual body composition into account, the NHS can claim that muscle mass is irrelevant and therefore that sex is irrelevant.

But the fact that individual body composition isn't taken into account (making the tool poor for, eg, weightlifters and some other sports people) doesn't entail that it can't take into account the clear fact that the average body composition for men and the average body composition for women are known and different - entailing a different healthy weight range for men and women.

Unless this reasoning is wrong (which it may well be!) it does seem that they have hamstrung the usefulness of this tool to avoid all the gender controversy bullshit. After all, we all know from our daily experience that MEN WEIGH MORE THAN WOMEN.

Worrying that the NHS now apparently think men and women are just replicas of each other. We've gone back further than medieval with that unscientific logic. Have they given the reins of the national website to Stonewall or something?

Um, women store and hold fat completely differently to men who have more muscle.

I cannot believe there is no difference. Do they include how they came to that?

Well I did mine the other day and selected female and my BMI has now dropped a reasonable amount for exactly the same weight/height/etc.

"The NHS removed the 'are you male/female?' question from its online adult BMI calculator because sex is not a factor in the core adult BMI calculation formula itself, "
fair enough, no problem with that.

"and the change makes the tool more inclusive for transgender and non-binary people."
Now you're beclowning yourself, NHS, there's no need to add this, you've already given the perfect explanation, so this is just namechecking trans and NB for the heck of it😒

Yes they are.
Men have more muscle mass than women and way more than a woman of the same size and fat %

Given BMI doesn't change with sex it seems like a fairly reasonable course of action to me. Whether it would be more helpful if it did change with sex is another question.

Ah I see, thank you.

I feel like they could improve the calculation significantly by adding a few questions on sex and lifestyle and get a far more meaningful result. Maybe we should all suggest it?

BMI doesn’t take into body composition. It’s a flaw of the measure but it’s always been that way. It’s just your weight and height.

Surely as men have a higher muscle mass which is heavier, the calculation would be affected? The website says that my DH would be healthy at 9 stone which at 5’ 10” is blatantly ridiculous.

The BMI calculation for adults doesn’t and hasn’t ever had sex as a factor in the calculation. It’s just weight in kg / height in m squared.

I’ve just tried it for myself and dh. It correctly reports that we are both a healthy weight for our height but the recommended healthy ranges seem off - DH is 5’10” but it says that he would still be healthy if he was just over 9 stone. He is currently fit at approx 11.5 stone - if he lost 2 stone he’d look emaciated. Apparently your ethnic background is more important than your sex….

The best weight for your height is between 9 stone 3 pounds and 12 stone 6 pounds. For a man of 5’10”.

The kids one uses sex but includes this odd suggestion.

What is the child's sex?
Sex is needed to work out the BMI of anyone under 18 years old. This is because there are different growth charts for females and males.
Select the child's sex at birth. Speak to a GP if you need more advice about this.

Quite. The formula for BMI is the same regardless of sex. And boundaries for 'healthy' same.

Different boundaries for healthy in different ethnicities though.

A quick google:
"The NHS removed the 'are you male/female?' question from its online adult BMI calculator because sex is not a factor in the core adult BMI calculation formula itself, and the change makes the tool more inclusive for transgender and non-binary people."
It goes on to say that the previous inclusion of the sex discriminator was for the purpose of tailoring follow-up recommendations, such as daily calories, which do depend on sex.
I'm genuinely surprised that the formula itself would not be impacted.

Are BMI thresholds actually different for men and women though? I thought it’s the same and just different for children and some ethnic groups. So the decision may not be anything to do with gender/trans issues.