BMI, stands for Body Mass Index.

I hate it! The thing always tells me I'm over weight, but I'm not really. My body carries any extra fat as soft curves. I'm 5'3 and I weigh 142 lbs.

Another example; when my mother was in school, they tested the BMI, but my mom was a farm girl so she was nearly pure muscle, no fat. When they weighed her, she was greatly over weight for her height, but when they did the test to see how much fat was on her, they couldn't find any.

Pretty much my discussion is, does anyone else find problems with the BMI, or does it just seem to be me.

You're not alone on this one. I think it's beyond ridiculous how that thing works. Weight and height alone is not enough to calculate how much fat is on your body.

I really don't understand how the BMI works, lol. I DO know that I have a ton more muscle on me than most women, I even did as a girl, and I had that same problem as your mother did, Syranna. Luckily my parents didn't really care about some list/grid like that, and it was sort of expected that I was going to be muscular anyway, and all was fine with me.

Generally I dislike inflexible black and white things like that.

I don't really see the point of BMI. Mine tells me that I'm slightly underweight. I am skinny, but I'm not that skinny, I've got muscle. Online ones usually aren't that accurate. :/

Well, I'm overweight for real, but I don't agree with the BMI system too much if it says you're overweight because 140 some pounds and 5'3 isn't overweight....not to me anyway.

well :) im 5'3 in height -- age 13 and weigh 98 pounds :]]

Yeah I thought about the same thing when I had to calculate BMI's in AFJROTC. It was a ridiculous waste of time. It makes as much sense to me as not switching to the metric system. What countries other than America Do use BMI?

In England they've stopped placing so much importance on the BMI system. The last time i went for an asthma check up, she told me that it's not reliable enough to be applied across the board to everyone. Apparently there's a new system that enables people to come to a conclusion based upon the individual in question, although i wasn't actually on the recieving end of that.

Oh god! I'm the same but opposite.
I'm apparently Underweight, Okay so I'm a 'little' skinny, I dont think I'm underweight.
Actually now that I think about it i probs shud eat more, (Even though my mum says that i should be the size of a blimp with all i eat) because last night i went to this party and as i was putting my dress on i relised it doesnt fit me the way it used to. and the same with my jeans and like everyone is like woah your so skinny and everything but when i tell then how much I weigh hy are all like OMG no way!

My doctors tell me I'm slightly overweight. BMI lists me as horribly obese.

I do a lot of heavy lifting (I often have to lift 50-pound loads over my head one-handed, this has grown EASY for me, to put it in perspective).

I do have a pretty visible amount of excess body fat. I'm somewhat visibly pear-shaped. But of my 75 "extra" pounds, really only about 30 are fat. Considering my body type - and this is my doctors' word, not mine - that's actually not too bad.

Not to say I'm not working on losing those extra 30 (and succeeding!), but yeah...BMI isn't the most encouraging thing in the world if you can lift more than a feather, y'know? >_>;

There are limitations to the BMI, surely. More than anything when it's about muscle. If you have lots of muscle or no muscle at all, the standard BMI calculation of course isn't enough. BUT it is always right TO A CERTAIN DEGREE. I mean, it may be off by, let's say, 4 BMI points. Putting 4-5 more BMI points or less BMI points should put you in the right place. I know this because I have two athlete friends who weigh themselves and periodically get their body fat calculated too but they don't want to pay extra for that all the time so that's what they've told me they do when they look at BMIs for newcomers to the gym (the local one only has a regular scale and they weigh people to give them exercise plans).
And honestly "curvy" doesn't really have anything to do with BMI. Muscly yes, curvy no. 142lbs for your height being called overweight can't be wrong unless you have double D's or something. No other curve weighs that much. I'm not saying this makes you look bad, I'm saying you're wrong to assume that you're thin. Being thin =/= being pretty.

In any case, overweight doesn't mean obese. You need to also understand that a lot of overweight people look really good. Unless you're at the obese end of the overweight scale, there's nothing wrong with you at ALL. Normal there is just a word that means "healthiest" from a primitive point of view (aka, no vitamin supplements for the thin and no healthy living options for the overweight both of which are available to us in the modern world). "Normal" on the BMI scale does NOT mean "pretty," does NOT mean "looks amazing." It's just the middle, and presumably healthiest. With modern medication and everything, obviously being in "top shape" is not necessary, and certainly has got nothing to do with how you look, really.

So yeah; you are overweight, but probably very pretty. The BMI scale is not cussing you out, it's pointing out the most possible range you are in, according to height and weight.
Muscles weigh more than fat, this is why your mother's BMI was off by that much. "Curves" ARE fat therefore do not weigh more. Your own story should tell you that anyhow.

BMI is far from exact but for taking very limited information from a person to figure out it gives you a very limited answer. It shouldn't be all that is looked at and it should never be used as the only basis of comparison when trying to determine if a person is at an average weight for the height and age. At a glance, however, BMI at least gets you into the right ball park. I wouldn't be so touchy if it calls you overweight. The range of 'normal' on the BMI scale is hardly the norm in America, where statistics say 2/3rds of the population are overweight and 1/3rd is obese.

I guess what I'm saying is that BMI is a vague tool with unreliable data that only guesses at the ballpark at what ballpark you should be in. It's silly to take it too seriously or to be offended by what it might tell you, especially if you know there are factors (like being a farmgirl and pure muscle) that would skew the data.

I'm fat no matter how I look at it. Thanks, birth control.

Originally Posted by DAyangBRICK

Yeah I thought about the same thing when I had to calculate BMI's in AFJROTC. It was a ridiculous waste of time. It makes as much sense to me as not switching to the metric system. What countries other than America Do use BMI?

Denmark uses it :( A lot!

But I can't blame the numbers.. I am overweight, and have no muscles at all, so I guess it's pretty accurate on me.
I'm a clump of jello <3

Yeah, I'm afraid BMI is pretty inaccurate, it doesn't take into account muscle mass or build.

Like it always says that I'm underweight, but it's pretty obvious that I'm not, if anything I could stand to lose some weight. I just have an extremely petite frame.

Basically, if you're not made from a cookie cutter, it can't be trusted to be accurate.

When I was in Highschool, we had a lot of health portions, as I'm sure most do, but in one particular class we all learned how to properly calculate our BMI. According to the system we use the ratio is a little more complex than -Just- weight and height. I believe that's where a lot of the problems you all are experiencing stem from. When we made the calculations there's also other body measurements we made that involved making an estimated muscle-mass factor in the equation. I've always been a bit pudgy, even my sister is, and she's one of the most active people I know (cheerleading, Jr. ROTC, drumline, etc.) But we both have a lot of muscle. It's part of our bone structure. I have a coworker who looks like a toothpick...if I were as skinny as she is, I'd be all bone and skin. On the other hand, she has some muscles in her so she's not really a toothpick per se. Anyway, when we calculated for BMI I was above the normal zone, but I was nowhere near morbidly obese. I just looked at my BMI according to the Weight/ Height calculator here, and according to it I should pretty much have a heart attack everytime I walk the mile+ to the bus stop to get to work. I don't know why they don't use the same system I had back in Highschool, but it seems that's a lot of the problem right there.

I find BMI unfair and in someways degrading. It's this kind of thing that makes people obsess about their weight. I don't mean that in some cases it's not a "good" thing. But telling a young girl in high school that she's overweight when she only weighs 130 pounds - but the chart says something different could be life threatening. People in their teens - most especially girls - are very impressionable and tend to take things to heart quickly. I think therefore, BMI shouldn't be used in middle/high schools to judge health standards.

I disagree with that. BMI can be a helpful tool when done properly. Pure weight to height is not proper. However, athletics in highschool can be a good way to help correct issues. It's a matter of giving the system a chance. Sure, not everyone's that understanding, and certainly hormonal adolescents cannot be expected to see all the benefits at once. That's why programs are usually packaged with a teacher, and there's counselors at the ready. You just have to make half an effort.

I was nastily overweight most all my life. Growing up I always looked like I was pregnant. In highschool I continued to actively participate and by the time I graduated I was looking pretty damn good...if I say so myself. Which I wasn't. I was still wearing baggy clothes most of the time because it was normal for me, but my highschool prom was amazing. I popped myself into something form fitting, and nearly knocked my date speechless. That and I got a lot of compliments from other girls on how I looked. It was really nice. The reason: I took all these things to heart and did something about it.

There's always going to be a line between being cruel and trying to help. A BMI lesson in highschool isn't trying to point fingers or give you impossible standards. It's supposed to give you a tool and help you form an appropriate goal. This being said, according to the BMI I took, 180 for 5'7" would have put me in the "normal" zone. According to the BMI calculators I'm finding online, it'd put me at 28 in a 19-25 range for normal. According to that I'd still be obese. However, with as much muscle as I've developed over the years that's not going to ever be realistic for me.

Well, I don't think I find anything wrong with it. I weight 122. xD

My BMI places me into the obese I category, I'm 220 pounds and I'm 6 foot..and I'm not fat..not really even chunky. I'm just large. I don't go by the BMI, I feel healthy and I eat healthy..I could workout more, but whatever. The BMI scores don't account for body type and such.