“The body mass index has long been criticized as a flawed indicator of health. A replacement has been gaining support: the body roundness index.” Article unfortunately doesn’t give the freaking formula for chrissakes; it’s “364.2 − 365.5 × √(1 − [waist circumference in centimeters / 2π]2 / [0.5 × height in centimeters]2), according to the formula developed by Thomas et al.10”
Waist to height is the only proven metric. And the problem with BMI is not that it is overestimating fat, it’s that it’s underestimating fat because it completely misses skinny-fat people, and the number of those is much higher than the number of jacked overweight not fat athletes.
Add to this the complicating factor that it’s really torso fat that is metabolically active and dangerous to your health.
Waist should be less than half your height, you don’t even need a measuring tape. Get someone to cut a string as long as you are tall, and see if it can go around your waist twice, with at least some extra length. If so, you are good, probably don’t have too much torso fat.
For all the time I’ve been told how bad BMI is, and how it classes top athletes as obese, I can’t help but notice how few of those people have the body of a top athlete.
OH, come on, I have body close to some professional shot putters or hammer/discus throwers! /s
I am a sphere.
If you’re frictionless too, physicists will love you
Especially if he lives in a vacuum.
Replacing BMI with BMI2 is fine, but it’s doesn’t change the fact that most Americans are overweight or obese, and the tiny, tiny sliver of people who have a high BMI from weightlifting are insignificant relative to the ~70% that are just plain fat
Help me out here. What’s BMI2 - searching gives me computer related stuff and running “BMI weight” just gives old BMI stuff.
They’re just calling this new thing BMI2 as shorthand
Oh, ok. Thank-you.
There’s also a lot of people who had essential muscles replaced with fat, thus evading the overweight designation while having an imminent risk of diabetes. This reflects that.
Yay, I’m a tiny sliver!
It is one of the most widely used health metrics but also one of the most reviled, because it is used to label people overweight, obese or extremely obese.
That’s like blaming the ruler for labeling you too short or too tall… Can’t we just use the tool for rough assessment, while being aware of its limitations, and be happy about it?
Or just make a better ruler?
Look at it this way, BMI is a cross section of weight and height. I was considered “overweight” for ages because I just had tree trunk thighs from hiking and weightlifting. Like, less than 16% body fat but told I’m ‘overweight’ every time I got weighed.
The ruler was fucking wrong.
Nowadays, I’m much more of a fat fuck so the ruler is right now but only just so… I’m still under 25% when using hydrostatic!
i think you’re taking that quote out of context a bit. a few sentences later, the article says
Even physicians have weighed in on the shortcomings of B.M.I. The American Medical Association warned last year that B.M.I. is an imperfect metric that doesn’t account for racial, ethnic, age, sex and gender diversity. It can’t differentiate between individuals who carry a lot of muscle and those with fat in all the wrong places.
“Based on B.M.I., Arnold Schwarzenegger when he was a bodybuilder would have been categorized as obese and needing to lose weight,” said Dr. Wajahat Mehal, director of the Metabolic Health and Weight Loss Program at Yale University.
so the point they seem to be making is that, while BMI is controversial partly because people like to shoot the messenger, it’s also just not a reliable measurement in a medical context, even as a heuristic. the article also goes into more detail on its other shortcomings as well. the article also indicates how BMI was never intended to be used in a medical context. so, there are plenty of valid reasons for wanting a new metric.
but i do think the sentence you quoted isn’t really doing the author any favors in terms of trying to communicate the central point of the article.
Seems like a lot of the flaws just have to do with the fact that the real metrics you want to use, which would probably be body fat percentage, are hard to measure accurately at home.
my main beef is that “too fat” is a wildly varying scale from person to person because everyone stores and processes fat differently. and if you’re “too fat” that may not in fact be your most relevant health concern. my experience with health providers that focus on BMI during intake is that if you’re “overweight” many other health problems will be seen through that lens even if they’re unrelated… in my case, lots of dieting advice, being told to exercise more come to find out decades later I had an undiagnosed nervous/muscular condition. now that it’s treated somewhat, my weight stays pretty much in “normal” BMI with the same or lower activity. I’m kinda pissed it took this long to get treatment for an underlying condition because the ruler said “too fat.”
it’s easy to calculate but extremely rough. Efficacy varies immensely. Look, nobody’s forcing you to do anything, I’m just saying that BMI is way too rough to be seriously examined.
This is the ideal male body. You may not like it, but this is what peak performance looks like.
Don’t skip scarf day
As an overweight 35 year old who wore skinny jeans: I feel this.
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BMI is the best measure we have for statistical purposes (i.e., a population) because it’s been around for 50(?) years and is what is often used in studies, so you can compare one study to another using BMI.
It’s also not terrible for a population because it averages out. But for an individual it is definitely not a good measure because there are way too many other variables that matter.
I think there is a better one, it’s called a mirror. I look at it every day and cry, but there is no question lol
Here’s an online calculator
Thank-you.
I’m from the UK and grew up in the seventies. I can’t do metric or imperial without help!
How come there’s a metric button that doesn’t work?
Worked for me.
Drag tried on mobile and PC. Every time drag clicked metric, it reloaded and switched back to imperial.
Hmm, that puts me at BRI of 2.1, and BMI of 35.4
Those both seem incredibly off.
But I do have extra dense bones apparently, which tends to be mostly what screws with my BMI, and my ability to float/swim. But they seem really hard to break, not that I try very hard… but none of them have broken yet. And I’ve been in situations that seem like they should have broken.
Either way, I weigh alot more than I look like I should, not quite “Wolverine getting on a motorbike”, but a bit like that.
Kinda makes me wish those “guess your weight” carnival experts were something I could see in real life, only ever seen it on TV.
Can’t tell you how disappointed I am that isn’t just a chart of increasingly tubby kittens.
Lvl. 10: “oh lawd he comin’”
Interesting. Found a calculator and according to this I’m “very lean” (only just) while I’m overweight (again, only just) using BMI.
Judging by the belly fat I can pinch, I’m gonna trust the BMI
This is fascinating because I got a BRI of 1.9 and it’s saying I’m in the healthy zone. So I don’t really know what to believe here
Yeah not sure how I feel about BRI. It’s telling me my BRI is fine, but I’m rounder than I’d like to be.
How round one wants to be is easily influenced by external factors like culture, though. I think slim bodies look sleek and beautiful, but it’s probably healthier to have a bit of fat in the right places (for times when your digestive system is on the fritz)
I like the effort for a body weight stat being more complete or useful for individuals, but my efforts measuring BRI came up kind of wack too :(. We decided it judged me too thin.
Be egg. It is the only way.
Wikipedia has a chart:
I would be healthier if I were 1.4m.
Good to see it as a chart but that is different to the results it returns
I can I get your height? Gotta be 2.2m
For all waists < 85cm, 1.4m would be the best height.
Link please? Looks more informative than the one in another comment
I used this one
BMI is not a medical metric. Here is an article explaining that. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-01-02/the-problem-with-the-body-mass-index-bmi/100728416
Will this donut help me pass the body roundness test?
Paywall.
it’s a gift article bruh
