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People say that the BMI scale is bogus. How true is that, health experts?
(www.medicalnewstoday.com)
this post was submitted on 11 May 2025
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It's just fine. BMI is a proxy measure for overall health and risk of future health problems. Like any global proxy it is not a perfect fit for every situation, but it's a reasonably accurate quick'n dirty screen to go looking for other issues. So it's not a diagnosis in and of itself but it's a pointer to other issues. The sit/stand test would another example of this kind of measure. It's not measuring anything specific, but it's highly correlated with health outcomes. BMI has the advantage of being incredibly easy to measure, and it can be done from historical records where height and weight are available.
So there are problems with it, notably that yes muscle weighs more than fat. So yes, many bodybuilders appear as borderline obese. What this means is that there should be followup as it's a screener. A lot of people think this affects them, but if you aren't lifting 2/3/4, it probably doesn't. Those heavily muscled individuals are so far out on the bell curve they don't affect those of us in the middle 99%.
There are other problems with it, including that it doesn't scale well with height, so it gets wonky if you're taller than 6'5" or so.
Alternatives such as waist-to-hip ratio and waist circumference are better measures for individual diagnosis, but tend to not be favored in the research literature because there are not large population databases available, and historical comparisons are generally not possible.
Thank you. So many people hear "it's flawed" and conclude their doctor is abusing them simply by mentioning it to them.
but it’s highly correlated with health outcomes.Huh, as the article and the other commenter says, I was of the impression that it isn't as correlated with health outcomes as the medical field once thought. Maybe it's my high school football and track background, but I feel like I know a lot of people who have hit 2/3/4. I think they're less of an outlier than people lead on. Like, we had a graduating class of 70 people, and about 7 of them could lift some heavy weight, 6 masculine, one feminine. Of course, I know my podunk public school in rural U.S. isnt a proper microcosm for the world's population, but I think we should acknowledge that athletic people have some muscle mass on them. Most of the world works in manual labor jobs, so the athleticism of the regular person (outside of the US, which has a known history of a growing obese population) probably isn't as unmuscular as at least my US perspective would lead me to believe.You dramatically overestimate the number of people who can bench their bodyweight, forget about 2 plates. Your highschool were people in their prime, I bet those 7 did not maintain their fitness through the following 3 decades. And as I said that's a starting point for considering whether BMI breaks down for an individual, it's not a definitive statement.
BMI is just a tool for assessing whether there is cause for concern. Like a screening when a physician asks how many drinks you have a week. An answer of 10 doesn't make you an alcoholic, but they'll ask some follow up questions.
Similarly a BMI of 30 doesn't produce an OMG reaction and pressure to get bariatric surgery. But it will drive a lifestyle conversation. And I can guarantee any physician who sees that result and and sees you're built like a brick shit house will not be recommending food restriction.
The BMI standards were established in a healthier baseline population than currently exists. The 1940s and 1950s had a higher proportion of manual labor than we have now. So those arguments fall apart.
Similarly a BMI of 30 doesn’t produce an OMG reaction and pressure to get bariatric surgery. But it will drive a lifestyle conversation.Culturally, non-doctors act like this about an even pushing overweight BMI (25-30), especially if the person is a woman. The thing about BMI being overrated is the effect it has had on the popular health discourse, not on what a doctor tells you. I completely rescind the stuff about muscle, most of the world is not that muscular. But still, the overall cultural effect of the weight-watching culture is a lot more toxic than what the doctor says. Regular people think that skinniness is like the paragon of health, when sometimes the skinny people are getting sick twice a season, got low iron, and nap for a sum total of 12 hours of sleep a day. Maybe the post should have lead with that.