BMI Is Bullshit: Now With Photos!
| October 31st, 2007From Kate Harding at Shakesville:
So, the “Guess The Rotund’s Height and Weight” game gave me an idea. (Oh, and hey, if you want to see a scatter graph of the results, there’s one here now.) I talk a lot about how BMI is bullshit, but we all know talk is cheap. Photos of people who actually fall into each category, however? Say a lot.
Thus, I have created the Illustrated BMI Categories Project, to demonstrate just what “normal” and “overweight” and “morbidly obese” really look like. I’ll continue to add photos until people stop sending them — if you’d like to participate, please send a (worksafe) photo along with your true height and weight to katesblog at gmail dot com. I may not use all the ones I get, but I appreciate the courage of anyone willing to send one. (Oh, and I’m also creating a general Shapely Prose Readers photostream, so let me know if you want to be in that.)
It’s really awesome.
TRIGGER WARNING: However, please keep in mind that it features photos of people of different body types along with their weights. As Mandolin writes in comments, “I really appreciate this project, but you might want to put a trigger warning in the post. Weights are listed with the photographs and that can be problematic for people who are still dealing with vestiges of a disordered mindset.”
(Thanks to Sailorman for the tip.)
October 31st, 2007 at 11:42 am
I really appreciate this project, but you might want to put a trigger warning in the post. Weights are listed with the photographs and that can be problematic for people who are still dealing with vestiges of a disordered mindset.
This comment was written by Mandolin.Report this comment to the moderators
October 31st, 2007 at 11:53 am
Trigger warning added — thanks for the suggestion.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
October 31st, 2007 at 12:47 pm
BMI is a very rough measure, but at least it’s better than weight alone. There ought to be a better one, though.
This comment was written by Doug S..Report this comment to the moderators
October 31st, 2007 at 1:23 pm
Yeah…BMI sucks. My weight right now is what would be called ‘underweight’–but I eat normally, I probably exercise less than I should, and I feel fine, most of the time. I’m probably at the weight that’s right for me, but people see my 16.8-or-whatever BMI and say: “Eat more”–if I tried to get myself up to a normal weight, I’d probably make myself sick.
This comment was written by Genevieve.Report this comment to the moderators
October 31st, 2007 at 1:38 pm
http://www.dietandcancerreport.org/
Can’t wait for Amp’s analysis. (Just to be clear, I looked far enough to know that I lack time and probably sufficient expertise to evaluate its conclusions).
This comment was written by Barbara.Report this comment to the moderators
October 31st, 2007 at 2:15 pm
Yup, its crap. I wonder what the BMIs would be for contestants of the last Mr. Universe competition.
This comment was written by LarryFromExile.Report this comment to the moderators
October 31st, 2007 at 3:32 pm
I like the organization that Rob Cockerham did with this same idea….
(note, he doesn’t do BMI, but that is easy enough to calculate)
This comment was written by Mittmann.http://www.cockeyed.com/photos/bodies/heightweight.shtml
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October 31st, 2007 at 10:24 pm
How fucking sad is it that photos of normal people with a range of different body types needs a trigger warning? That says something really, really depressing about society.
This comment was written by Individ-ewe-al.Report this comment to the moderators
November 1st, 2007 at 5:47 am
Doug, the point is that it really ISN’T any better than weight. It is determined by taking your weight and dividing it by your height squared.
We’d be better off, you know, LOOKING at people and their relative levels of actual health.
Individ-ewe-al , that really IS a depressing statement about our culture. *sigh*
This comment was written by The Rotund.Report this comment to the moderators
November 1st, 2007 at 5:53 am
“How fucking sad is it that photos of normal people with a range of different body types needs a trigger warning?”
It’s not the photos, it’s the numbers.
This comment was written by Mandolin.Report this comment to the moderators
November 7th, 2007 at 1:58 pm
BMI is Bullshit: now with an article in the 11/7/07 Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). Briefly:
Overweight people (those with weight up to 30 lbs above BMI “normal” ranges) have no increased risk of death from cancer or heart disease. They have an increased risk of death from diabetes and kidney disease. But they have a REDUCED risk of death from pneumonia, emphysema, injuries and infections.
Obesity (BMI of 30+) still correlates with an increase risk of death from heart disease, diabetes and kidney disease, as well as cancer of the breast, colon, pancreas, esophagus, ovaries and uterus.
This comment was written by nobody.really.Report this comment to the moderators
June 10th, 2008 at 12:59 pm
From looking over that Flickr set, I can make a couple of observations.
1) “Normal” and “Overweight” both seem pretty healthy according to their scale
2) For women, it seems like having a well endowed chest on an otherwise healthy body puts you over the line to “overweight” or to “obese”, if you would otherwise be in the lower class. In my opinion, that shouldn’t count against you
3) The men’s scale is completely and utterly screwed up
This comment was written by Matt.Report this comment to the moderators
June 10th, 2008 at 10:47 pm
Matt, I just think this is in really bad taste, and this is coming from a renowned purveyor of tasteless jokes.
This comment was written by sylphhead.Report this comment to the moderators
June 11th, 2008 at 4:42 am
Sylphhead
I tried to point it out as politely as possible, but even if I were being crass, I don’t think that my observations were wrong.
This comment was written by Matt.Report this comment to the moderators
June 11th, 2008 at 12:14 pm
I don’t think that Matt was trying to make a tasteless joke. He was pointing out a fact of female anatomy — namely, that some women have very large breasts on otherwise slender bodies, and that breasts add weight and thus affect BMI. What I think maybe Matt doesn’t realize about women and their bodies is that for many women, breasts are just where they carry their weight. In other words, breasts aren’t fixed in size, nor are they made of some mysterious non-body substance. Just as there are men (and women, but more often men) who carry their weight in their stomach, and who can therefore look pretty thin except for their pot bellies, so there are women who carry weight on their chest, and who can therefore look pretty thin except for their breasts.
The phrasing of “count against you,” though, I agree, was unfortunate. For one thing, weight is not a moral issue. For another, isn’t this exercise in part to demonstrate just to what extent BMI is a crock? It’s precisely because people’s bodies carry weight so differently that a photo reference like this can be so assumption-shattering.
This comment was written by Elkins.Report this comment to the moderators
June 11th, 2008 at 12:19 pm
@Matt - people don’t give politeness very much weight in the feminist blogosphere, on account of of people who say extremely hateful things with an air of intellectualism about them.
Should’ve just come out and say that a lot of those ladies looked pretty slim but weighed into a heavier category on account of their massive boobs.
This comment was written by Silenced is Foo.Report this comment to the moderators
June 11th, 2008 at 12:48 pm
@everyone who replied
No, I completely agree, BMI is ridiculous as a judge of health or fitness in general.
Healthy or unhealthy, what makes a person good or bad isn’t related to their physical bodies at all.
This comment was written by Matt.Report this comment to the moderators
June 11th, 2008 at 8:52 pm
Well yeah, okay, I don’t mean to start a big thing with this. The whole reason why the issue of BMI can strike a very raw nerve with many women (and some men) is self image issues with regard to conventional attractiveness. So boob-related quips kind of come off as a cancer joke at a hospital. Buuuuttt… what do I know.
On a related note, I don’t know how much breast weight would add, given that it’s dense areas of muscle and bone that can deceptively add to ‘weight’. I heard somewhere that limb length is one of the most confounding variables.
This comment was written by sylphhead.Report this comment to the moderators
June 12th, 2008 at 12:41 pm
This is brilliant. 8)
I’ll be back later today with cookies for all the perpetrators. Oh, and fresh fruit. Your (pl.) choice.
This comment was written by ms_xeno.Report this comment to the moderators
July 4th, 2008 at 5:26 pm
No, Matt’s completely right. I’m on the overweight edge of normal, but it’s mostly because I’m a tiny girl with massive breasts. (My friends and I have decided that I should find out exactly how much they weigh and count my weight as (whatever it is really should be) + boobs.
This comment was written by S.Report this comment to the moderators
July 5th, 2008 at 10:13 am
I sort of wish my breasts weighted more. It might get me above the underweight category. At 16.1 BMI…I wouldn’t mind reaching 17, or 18. I think I do have a problem of not having enough fat (and having like 0 muscle mass above the minimal necessary to walk/move normally).
Poverty can keep you in the lower category against your will (if you got no food - because you can’t purchase more, how do you gain weight anyhow?)
This comment was written by Schala.Report this comment to the moderators
July 5th, 2008 at 5:13 pm
Happy belated Indy Day, everyone.
Ah. OK, I see then.
I believe this to be a fallacy. One of the first useful things I learned when I started working out in high school was that the whole obsession with protein, as well as diet in general, was largely overblown. Eating a rich Western diet already provides you with more than enough proteins for everyone except the most serious of hard muscle-gainers*. For instance, even the much-vaunted “one g of protein per kg of body weight” tends to be an overshoot for most casual exercisers, especially those who start out on the lean or heavy-set ends of the spectrum. Eating too much food that signifies mucho protein to a young male mind (junk containing lots of low grade meat, for instance, as opposed to egg whites, legumes, or lean fish), conversely, can drain vitality and thus diminish the efficiency of your workouts.
I don’t know what your current economic situation is, Schala, but if you are at least at the level where spending a lot of time online is a viable hobby, I don’t think the quantity (or even quality) of food would be too much of a barrier in gaining muscle mass. Getting the wrong information on how to exercise properly, as well as finding enough free time to keep up a regular regimen, are much more limiting, in my opinion. I especially can see how the latter would affect someone in poverty. Additionally, living space is a factor, because otherwise time-saving investments like an exercise ball or a set of dumbbells can be prohibitive in small quarters, something I found out during college. The latter can be downright dangerous.
If you want advice on building a regimen on a tight budget, though, I could be of assistance.
*Clues that you’re not the “most serious of muscle-gainers”: you don’t have a personal trainer, you don’t have a personal nutritionist, and you do 3 or 4 sets of each rather than 8.
This comment was written by sylphhead.Report this comment to the moderators
July 5th, 2008 at 7:20 pm
I’m not really after gaining muscles. I’m just saying muscles are barely a factor at all in my weight. I never wanted to gain muscles, though I was told I had nice lower leg muscles from running and walking a lot (no car).
I have 6,000$ a year. My mother has about 24,000$ a year, but it includes 2 children under her full custody (15 and 17), plus well, I pay rent and she lets me have a room and food (about an even deal considering I don’t eat that much food). At her income, she can’t afford to buy tons of food to feed off 4 people. Most of us only take 1, maybe 2 meals. Very rarely 3.
I’m mainly after gaining fat, so that I may gain hips and breast tissue beyond what I have now. My petite build coupled with my lack of fat gives me a very childish build (though I do have some apparent breasts).
This comment was written by Schala.Report this comment to the moderators
July 24th, 2008 at 2:53 pm
How much do breasts weigh? I am a bra fitter for “Marks and Spencer” and have tried weighing mine after a customer suggested that her “40 J cups” (English sizing) came in at about 10 pounds each mine are the same size and from putting them on the bathroom scales, balanced on a chest of draws, mine weigh the same 10 pounds each. If I was flat chested I would be a perfect weight but my BMI now shows me as being over weight.
This comment was written by jill.Report this comment to the moderators
July 24th, 2008 at 3:28 pm
Sailorman had a discussion about that on his blog a while back.
This comment was written by Daran.Report this comment to the moderators
August 12th, 2008 at 8:34 pm
BMI is inaccurate not only because it doesn’t take into consideration muscle vs fat % but BMI also doesn’t work for people of extreme heights. Somebody over 7 feet of even a relatively light body mass may be calculated to have a very high BMI.
The following formula works much better than BMI…
hypothetical mass (hm)= real mass (rm) times (hypothetical height (hh)/real height (rh))^3
Note the power of three is used because because the volume of an object is a cubic relation (height *width*depth) for example, if you doubled the size of a cube it’s volume would increase 8 folds (2*2*2=8) right? The same concept also applies to humans…
This comment was written by Alleyn.Report this comment to the moderators
November 20th, 2008 at 10:51 pm
The main problem with BMI scale is that it was created a long time ago and the average weight has changed over the years (but the previus averages are still used to calculate BMI). Muscle mass is also a major component that is not taken into account when calculating BMI. That is why a muscular individual who looks perfectly normal will be considered obese.
This comment was written by John.Report this comment to the moderators