A free-for-all thread

[Imperanonn]

Yeah BMI's shit. If one guy eats Maccy Ds while playing Skyrim all day and has a BMI of like 24, and another fuck off huge rugby player with muscles comparable to a whale has a BMI of like 30, it's pretty easy to tell who's got the most body fat.

Apparently I'm most similar to an adolescent Malaysian. On the chart, Malaysia's like 8 countries under Swaziland and Nigeria.

[Womble]

People who rant about BMI being bullshit due to muscle annoy me. You think they didn't realise that when they made the system?

If you work out often and you're fairly built then BMI doesn't really work for you, but in my experience, most people who bitch about BMI aren't.

[knottyolly]

What utter bollocks. They're still peddling BMI like it's something useful, and in any way an accurate measurement of body fat. I have a BMI of 27 and a measured body fat percentage of between 17 and 20. This puts me as "above average" for BMI, but somewhat below average for body fat. How does this make me unhealthy? It means I have fucking muscles.
It'd probably tell a rugby player he was obese.
</rant>

Aye, pretty much. I think the BMI scale can be a useful indicator in context to other measurements and facts about a person though. But obviously, it shouldn't be taken as a solid measurement in any sense.

[Fjar]

Yeah, that BBC thing shouldn't be calling it 'body fat' when they're using BMI calculations.

BMI calculation is useful for most people, I reckon. The majority of people aren't bodybuilders or athletes, and I don't think those kinds of people would be using BMI as a health measurement anyway. It's good for the average joe who does the minimal level of exercise and has a non-specialist diet.

It tells you what the abbreviation suggests, your 'body mass', but applying the under/overweight and obese tags is where it gets hazy.

[Littlemissmetal]

Somalia, apparently. BMI of 20.

A point though - if you were massively over or underweight, I doubt you'd need your BMI reading to tell you that you had a problem

[V-Man]

BMI calculation is useful for most people, I reckon. The majority of people aren't bodybuilders or athletes, and I don't think those kinds of people would be using BMI as a health measurement anyway. It's good for the average joe who does the minimal level of exercise and has a non-specialist diet.

People who rant about BMI being bullshit due to muscle annoy me. You think they didn't realise that when they made the system? If you work out often and you're fairly built then BMI doesn't really work for you, but in my experience, most people who bitch about BMI aren't.

These two things.

[keera_envenomed]

I'm Eritrea apparently but I guessed my weight so I don't really know.

[Kaahl]

No. It actually doesn't work for a large number of people. On the average, perhaps it works but it ignores the fact that the 'mean' body type is made from a massive range of body types. The modal value is highly likely to fall well short of the mean; the median far above it.

It's a completely ridiculous system that could be easily fixed by incorporating hip, waist and chest measurements into the formula.

[Jim]

It mentions standard deviation on there, and on the chart the SD is really faint, but I can easily imagine the SD is far larger than they're making out.

[Littlemissmetal]

http://www.healthyforms.com/helpful-too ... entage.php

There you go, waist measurement based body fat percentage calculation.

There's a more accurate one I've seen before with waist, hips, forearm, wrist and chest in there too but I'm struggling to find it now. Nothing's going to be as accurate as a skinfold method test though.

Again it doesn't allow for the gigantic difference between people who are underweight/overweight and people who are predominately muscle.

EDIT: Just did mine. Lord

[TheLotusEater193]

No. It actually doesn't work for a large number of people. On the average, perhaps it works but it ignores the fact that the 'mean' body type is made from a massive range of body types. The modal value is highly likely to fall well short of the mean; the median far above it.

It's a completely ridiculous system that could be easily fixed by incorporating hip, waist and chest measurements into the formula.

This.

[Kaahl]

http://www.healthyforms.com/helpful-tools/body-fat-percentage.php

There you go, waist measurement based body fat percentage calculation.

There's a more accurate one I've seen before with waist, hips, forearm, wrist and chest in there too but I'm struggling to find it now. Nothing's going to be as accurate as a skinfold method test though.

Again it doesn't allow for the gigantic difference between people who are underweight/overweight and people who are predominately muscle.

EDIT: Just did mine. Lord

Thanks.

That calculation puts me at 16% body fat, which puts me well into the 'healthy' range. My BMI is 27, placing me into the 'overweight' category. Now I'm not hugely muscular, I don't work out regularly and don't participate in any sports, I'm just not a person who sits about all day doing nothing and I have a job which requires occasional physical work.

at 16% body fat, I have ~31lbs of fat.

For me to reach a BMI of 25, I would have to lose 18lbs. If I were to drop 18lbs of fat alone without compromising muscle, I'd be left with only 7% body fat, putting me 'below healthy'. For me to reach a BMI of 22, I would have to lose 34lbs. That's a greater loss of weight than all my total body fat.

This is why BMI is bullshit.

On the other hand, I'm now going to try to drop 18lbs. I'll be RIPPED AS FUCK.

[Littlemissmetal]

It put me at about 12% - I suspect that's a bit low but I don't carry a lot of fat at the best of times, and I've just shed about a stone through illness. It might be accurate.

Where's the goddamn cake?!

[knottyolly]

13% for me, apparently.

[Fjar]

My shoe size is 5.