

Visualizing BMI's “Blind Spots” - jschwartz11
http://blog.bodylabs.com/2015/01/29/visualizing-bmis-blind-spots/

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npsimons
BMI is a simplistic, general indicator of relative size, one of many, and it's
main purpose is be more accurate than body weight alone. For the majority of
people it's correct. Almost every time I hear someone complain about it, they
use the same old tired excuses ("it's muscle!", "it doesn't take enough
factors into account!", "I'm big boned!", etc).

Why would anyone care? Because unfortunately science has gone and proven
common sense true in the form of correlation between being overweight/obese
and higher health risks and lowered longevity. So while BMI may not have
started as a health indicator, it's now linked as one.

Look, unless you are bodybuilding heavily or a professional/elite athlete, the
BMI is probably pretty accurate. If you don't think it's good enough you can
always do other measurements, such as body fat percentage or waist
circumference, or hell, even get a blood panel done (cholesterol, glucose,
etc). For example, my BMI was 26.3 at one point in time. My waist was also
40inches, and I was pinching 52mm on my belly, so yeah, BMI was spot on.
Thankfully, weight loss is possible, and I'm down to a BMI of 21.4, along with
improving my functional fitness greatly.

