To think someone that’s 7 stone and 5’4 is tiny

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And to be worried d

Exactly. BMI is a very broad brush.

Do you mind me asking what you eat in an average day? Just out of interest, I’ve no agenda.

It obviously does because the upper healthy range cut off is only 22.9.

For many years I was 5’3” & 7st4lb. It was my perfect weight. I wish I was still that now. I felt healthy, bouncy, strong & fit!

It doesn’t accommodate enough is the point. You ask Asian women how many register as being underweight.

Yet at least one study I have seen found that low BMI (under 18.5) was consistently associated with increased mortality among all Asian subgroups

https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/circ.147.suppl_1.P333

You’ve got that the wrong way round I think .

Or alternatively, eats when they need rather than sticking to arbitrary notions of mealtimes. An awful lot of us could learn from being more in tune with our bodies.

Congrats on the googling but that doesn’t change anything.

There is poverty and malnutrition in the populations in that study - China, India and Philippines - that you see much less of in countries like Japan and S.Korea let alone Western countries.

An interesting phenomenon on these threads is the preoccupation that lower BMIs in unhealthy with little concern for the reams of evidence linking overweight and obesity’s to serious illness. Obesity now being the second biggest preventable cause of cancer in the U.K.

Depends entirely on genetics/context. Has this person always been this weight? Have they suddenly lost weight without intending to? Are there any other factors (ilness etc.) at play?
I am 5"5 and 7'7 so not worlds away from what you describe. I lost a lot of muscle postpartum due to not doing as much sport.

It depends? I’m 5’4 and used to be 7 stone 5. It was the best I looked and I still had curves but was just strong and lean. I was a size 4-6. I’m now an 8, weighing 8 stone 3.

DD is currently that height and weight and is under the eating disorder team at CAMHS.

There is poverty and malnutrition in the populations in that study - China, India and Philippines - that you see much less of in countries like Japan and S.Korea let alone Western countries.

Indeed there is, and it results in sub 18.5 BMIs with the associated higher mortality rates.

I've believed I was "in tune with my body" at various times when I was eating far too little to maintain a healthy adult weight. If you consistently undereat then your appetite cues go all wonky.

Tbh I'm going to stop commenting on this thread because it's not good for me (because it makes me think, why bother maintaining a few pounds into the healthy weight range - why not be as thin as I like? Maybe I didn't look so ill after all? Maybe I didn't need to gain weight in the first place because we've lost sight of a healthy weight!)

But l will say the language around food and eating on this site can be utterly disordered, e.g. the thread from a couple of years ago about what BMI people feel slim at. And I know this from sad experience.

Exactly. And that is a completely different issue from the numbers of healthy well-fed Asian women who nonetheless register in the lower to underweight BMI category.

The BMI of a woman of 5ft 4 weighing 7st is only 16.8, which is underweight.

Yet the WHO and the health authorities of all the countries where those women live maintain that 18.5 is the lowest end of the healthy range.

Why?

Because I’ve had kids by c section and my stomach area is not how I would like it. Like I said. I’m 5ft so even a gain of 3lb notices a lot. Unless you’re petite you will not understand! It’s literally a mind F.

Gosh, that's a BMI of 15.3 (I knew it was low because I am an inch taller and at 9 stone have a BMI of 19.2 which is pretty slim).
Even as a teenager that would be regarded as severely anorexic.
I'm very surprised that you were a size 12 at that weight and that you menstruated.

I’m 8st 10 and 5ft 1 and I look tiny after being size 16 for 25 years. This weight feels tiny and she is taller and lighter. Is she comfortable with her weight?

What is the point of this thread? People just listing their weight and height and how fab they felt at 7 stones?

^^This - it all depends on the build. I’m 5ft 3 and I still didn’t look skinny at 7st 7 (my lowest adult weight), despite the fact that it’s at the lower end of a healthy weight for that height. I’m what they used to call “small-boned”, and even at 7st 7 I still had fleshy upper arms, a not insubstantial bum and a little pot belly!

(All this is pure nostalgia for me now as it’s a long while since I was anywhere near 7st 7 😭)

It would help if OP came back and gave more info, but I suspect you’re right, they just wanted to start a daft thread where people who are clinically underweight can claim it’s all very fine.

Because, as has been explained, BMI are simply guidelines and don’t account for build and muscle mass.

There will be many men and women like my brother with big frames, a lot of muscle mass, little fat, who register in the unhealthy range.

That's why the range is so wide. There are outliers like professional rugby players, Olympic weight lifters and gymnasts.This is indeed a limitation of BMI, but those people will absolutely be aware of this.

It is one metric and one that is very easy to assess and for most people it is helpful.