Body Mass Index | Disclaimer: NOT a gold standard for everyone
 

I was inspired to post this because I just saw a post online about how 100-pound wo/men are underweight...without considering the height of the person!

To keep this super simple, your body mass index, also known as BMI, is basically a number that tells you if you're underweight, normal weight, overweight, or obese. It's based on your height and your weight. For example, it's expected that a taller person can be heavier than a shorter person.

Here is an online BMI calculator if you would like to know your BMI:
Calculate Your BMI - Standard BMI Calculator

BMI is calculated thus:

mass / height^2
where mass is in kilograms
and height is in inches

For more information, please do a Google search :)

EDIT: I found these post to be very eloquent disclaimers. The BMI is NOT a gold standard for assessing everyone's health.

BMI is really misleading. Honestly, I think that it's outdated.

BMI doesn’t take a person’s overall muscle mass or body fat percentage into consideration. It really makes no distinction between weight gained from fat stores and weight gained from lean tissue. Instead, it lumps everyone of a certain height together into one group, regardless of their activity levels, genetics, body composition, medical history, frame size and age. Height is just one variant here that determines how much you “should” weigh.

Keep in mind that BMI was never intended to comment on our health. It was originally just made for the sake of gathering census data.

So don't take your BMI too seriously! It's a really basic overview of an incredibly complex medical issue.

100 lbs is light for any 5'2"+ adult. Id dare even venture slightly lower than that but I wont for the sake of this thread.

BMI is a method used when doing just this. However, BMI should NOT be an excuse at ANY point in time to argue an eating disorder. We have established that eating disorders happen, and quite often in younger people. They find every rationale possible to excuse the fact they are the way they are. If someone is under 100 pounds and they are taller than 5'2" they SHOULD be going to a doctor. I am 5'6" and I was underweight after a surgery coming in at 136 lbs. Since then I have gained my weight back but my BMI at that time would have put me as "fine" when in reality I was not.

As long as the "the thinner the better." is the "perfect" ideal. BMI is mostly being used to justify some false bullshit that will just ignore a growing problem in both youths and adults in this society we live in.

Agreeing with Knerd and Bartuc.

As anecdotal evidence...
At 5'4" and ~107 lbs, that puts me just at "underweight." Which is honestly laughable. [lol] I'm certainly pretty lean, but no one could look at me and accuse me of being underweight. I have thighs so thick that buying pants that fit them (while not being too big in the waist) is pretty damn hard. I don't count calories, I eat dessert every night, don't exercise, often overeat, and am in the habit of snacking even when I'm not hungry. The only sort of "diet" I have is that I'm vegetarian - and that certainly doesn't preclude me from junk foods. I don't have ribs sticking out, my face isn't gaunt, my hair is healthy and my eyes are bright... What I'm saying is that my weight is healthy (even if my eating habits need a little work, but not in the way "underweight" makes you think [lol]).

Really, the only reliable way to know if your weight is healthy or not (unless it's glaringly obvious) is to just talk to a doctor. They will take things like muscle mass vs. fat into consideration, as well as all the other variables in the equation.

Thank you for your posts. I hope it is okay to quote some of you in the first post as disclaimers.

BMI is not a be all, end all for everyone.

I also did not say anything about health in my original post. But, I will add this disclaimer here that just because you are categorized as underweight or overweight by the BMI does not necessarily mean you are unhealthy.

Bartuc, do you mean someone who is 100 pounds and *taller* than 5'2''?

Yeah actually ^^; I should probably go fix that.