Company provided health fair. Good intentions, bad presentation.
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I was reminded about a certain… social media " inflencer" whoes doubling down on BMI. Where he’s stressing that regardless of body comp you should still worship BMI as the gold standard of evaluating your fitness and health level.
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The minute you said “social media influencer”… 
S
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I can’t figure out who it is…for real, maybe I am not up on “influencers”
I’ll look for it, but, as a counterpoint here, I do remember a meta-review that essentially showed correlation between BMI and poor cardiac health outcomes and mortality. Basically more weight is tough for your heart, regardless of whether you’re an NFL DE or a fat soap opera watcher.
There are some inherent flaws in these types of meta-reviews; in this case, I don’t think the individual studies were powered to differentiate between fat-free mass in the individuals (I’m barely remembering). It was still interesting though.
Yeah thats the thought process that regardless of the type it will have a long term negative impact on longevity.
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I always think of superstar race horses who die early because of an enlarged heart. I also think of big people in general who die young - like the giants.
I’m a long ways from that category but it makes me wonder if being larger than average will impact my life span.
BMI was created in the 1800s so I think the population standards may have changed a bit…
I’m actually surprised America hasn’t moved the scale so that normal is 25-30 and so on. We’re all about feeling good instead of accepting reality. I’m pretty sure women’s clothing sizes have changed. Every size is bigger than it used to be so fat women can say they wear a medium instead of XL.
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I am always shocked to find out how many of you dudes watch fitness social media whenever this stuff comes up.
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It is like driving by a car accident on the interstate… you don’t want to look but you do.
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One could say humans in general have a morbid curiosity about morbid obesity.
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I actually explicitly don’t look. Not since I got a driver’s license. A promise I made to myself.
Don’t give these dudes traffic
I know… which makes me part of the problem of unintentionally supporting the stupidity I detest.
I personally can’t help but think that BMI is just used as a tool to distance doctors from telling people the unvarnished truth in case they ‘kick off’ and hurt someone’s feelings by telling them the freaking obvious. Then again, some doctors have no common sense sometimes.
They should just replace the BMI system with waist measurements or even better, what I like to call the classic, suck it in and how far your gut goes in test!
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I like to believe that my doctor thinks about my health every day. But I would say the truth is my health never crosses the doctor’s mind until he/she walks into the examining room.
The BMI is just a number that is best used relative to your previous BMI’s. It isn’t the absolute value of the number. It is the trend of the BMI.
Ideally, my health record would contain a graph of my BMI’s. The trend of the data is much more beneficial than the absolute value of any one data point. Do I believe that a graph is ever generated? No, but that would be helpful for the doctor. (The actual value of BMI is worthless for highly muscled people, IMO)
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Yeah, a nice graph!
That’s just the way my girlfriend’s weight loss phone app works. It used height/weight to find current BMI and then set a goal for body weight using height and “ideal” BMI.
It graphs out a theoretical line of falling BMI with theoretical, steady linear weight loss and your line of actual weight loss/BMI change to keep you on track.
That may be how it’s used, but to actually look at impacts in studies you have to have quantifiables - BMI gives you that.
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I think like, a guy walks into the doctors office at 50 some years old, high bmi, high blood pressure, all the ect’s, complaining of tiredness, weakness, all that. Doc looks at heart stuff, and reasonably so.
Compared to
Guy at 45 comes in jacked, good markers, just needs a check up for work or what ever, no real health complaints. Doc doesn’t waste much time looking for problems that aren’t likely to be there.
Or
I walk in, late 40’s, so-so outward appearance, hand full of stents, family history, etc. No mystery at what’s going on or what direction care should take.
Different puzzles have different pieces.
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Ehh not entirely (I’d say for the general masses) Follows similar protocol for the guys. Maybe take into account hip to waist ratio depending on the individual, but if a woman has too much fat on either the waist, hips, or both, I’d still think it would line up with your proposal for the dudes as well. Simplicity included.
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My family practitioner has me clocked in at 40 BMI. I started January of this year hovering around 176-180ish? Now I hover around 184-186ish. Early January of this year he had me at 35-37 BMI, and now has me at 40.
Doctor was like “I wanna see you in the 110-115lbs range.” I had to stand up with my hands/arms stretched out and genuinely ask, “Doctor. With all due respect, could you just picture for a second, how incredibly skinny I would look if I lost upwards of 40ish percent of my own body weight?” He just sighed and looked at the ground for a second.
I experience amenorrhea sub 120lbs so I’m just kind of wondering where my doctors head is at when he tells me these things. Like…he can physically see me. He’s right there. Yeah I don’t wear tight clothing most times, but my gosh, come on. Got a T-shirt and jeans on man. Yeah I have a decent amount of fat to lose for my goals, but I’ll be darned if I’m 40 BMI. 40? Nah.
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Whilst I think that BMI as a standard is a little aged and certainly not perfect it does serve a purpose to at least give a someone standard to measure to. I think @Frank_C is spot on when he talks about clothing size changes and general change in the size of the population. If you look at photos of people in the 70’s and 80’s you will clearly see how slim people look compared to today’s average. We all like to say the BMI is wrong because it’s easier than saying the whole world is getting fatter and lazier.
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