I went to the doctor's yesterday for my annual physical and had an interesting discussion with my doctor. I was weighed in and I weighed 247 pounds at a height of 5'11" and age of 45 years old. near the end of the physical he tells me my cholesterol is high and I should start doing some exercise because my body mass index says I am squarely in the middle of the obese category.
I laughed at him. He asked why I was laughing. I told him, doc, I walk a minimum of 5 miles a day and in doing so usually am walking about a 16-17 minute mile with hills. There are days I walk 8 miles. I told him I know I need to lose some weight but even if I were to drop 20 pounds I would still be considered obese with that BMI calculator he was using.
I then asked him to go back and check what my BMI would have been at 18 years old when I was a Division III level athlete in baseball and football. He did. I weighed 190 pounds and my BMI would have put me at "overweight" then and with a BMI around 27.
What a crock!! I probably didn't have an ounce of fat on me then. I could run the 40 in 4.6 and bench my own weight easily several times minimum.
If this tool, which I see around the internet at weight loss sites all the time and is being used by the medical industry as well as the for profit weight loss industry, is telling our wives, daughters, kids and ourselves that we are obese, then it needs a serious retooling. Not every person fits into this BMI tool and for those with a larger frame and heavy muscular-skeletal makeup, such as athlete and such, it is just plain off.
http://www.halls.md/body-mass-index/av.htmHere's a link to a site with one of these tools. You tell me. Enter your data and see where you come out. I found out that for me to be squarely in the middle of the healthy range I would need to lose 100 pounds. I haven't weighed 150 pounds since my freshman year of high school and would be well on my way to dying if I even attempted to get under 170 pounds, never mind down to 150.