Fatter than we think we are

[lljkk]

Did anyone else think of MN today when the story was broadcast about how older adults have higher body fat% than they realise, and that recommended BMI maybe needs adjusting down as a result for people age 40+ ?

Made me think of lots of threads on here about how "BMI is so discredited" and "doesn't apply to me because I'm special muscly". So it turns out those could be half-true statements, except that the top end of healthy BMI for the avg MNer probably needs to be << 25, not stretched to 27+.

I'd wager the avg MNer is age 40+ and ... fatter than she thinks she is.

Story

I think most people who have anything to say about BMI are trying to find a problem with it to find a way around the fact that most people in the country are overweight or obese, and that most likely includes them. The BMI chart shouldn't really concern any of us aside from giving us a brief overview of roughly how unhealthily overweight or underweight we are. I suppose it's a kind of deflection, perhaps, to assert that there's something wrong with the BMI chart.

Of course, I know it doesn't work for everybody, but the people it doesn't work for are not the majority of people – the very, very young; the elderly; and very muscly athletes. And I know it doesn't work as well for people of Asian, African, and Caribbean descent. I suppose my point is that we ought to know if we're fat. We don't need a chart, and we don't need to try to discredit it to avoid admitting to ourselves that we are very overweight.