Tall men and BMI

I'm tall myself so I'll add my experience. After bariatric surgery years back the target they gave was 180 lb as ideal. I reached the low 220s and looked unwell. My doctor and I decided 240 felt better and set that as the goal instead.

BMI is pointless. At 6'2" my best shape was 249 lb at 9 % body fat. The chart doesn't work for people who train.

I get the frustration. I'm 6'5" with a big frame. My best shape was at 18, 255 lb playing high school football. I've been over 400 lb and now sit around 280. I'm aiming for about 240 and will adjust once I get there based on how I feel. Those chart goals only make sense if you're returning to a former healthy self. If you've carried extra weight since childhood and never hit those numbers as an adult, they're just guesses.

At 6'5" the chart target sits just under 200 lb. I could probably go a bit lower because of love handles, though I'm lean elsewhere. Years ago I hit 192 lb and this year reached 240 lb. My body doesn't hold much muscle so at 54 I only want to add muscle, which is tough. I cycle a lot, up to 600 miles a month in summer, and burn plenty of calories. The charts calling 220 lb overweight are laughable.

I'm 5'9.5" and the BMI range would put me in the 150s. No thanks.

The charts miss too many factors like frame and body composition. A good doctor factors those in and changes their view accordingly.

Skip BMI. Check body fat instead.

Ignore the BMI numbers and old insurance height-weight tables. I'm 6'4" and currently 201 lb. Sometimes I still feel like I look heavy, maybe leftover ghost fat. Body fat percentage is probably the better guide. I had a DEXA scan at 223 lb and plan another soon. I don't have a strict body fat target. Practically I also think about clothing sizes. I've been trying to fit into 42L suits and just managed that.

Those BMI numbers only work if body fat is extremely low. I'm 6'3" at 175 lb, about 10 lb more than high school, and it's mostly muscle now.

I'm 6'9" and down to 250 lb from 300. Standard BMI wants me at 225 lb, which would never feel healthy. There's a newer version of the BMI formula that adjusts for height better.

BMI has had problems from the start. It was built on male data and doesn't fit women because of different body composition. It ignores muscle versus fat. Height is already included. Recent articles suggest waist measures or waist-to-hip ratio might work better, though those have their own issues with natural hip differences. Too much muscle can also be unhealthy, like the biggest bodybuilders who struggle to breathe. Those cases are extreme though.

BMI is worthless. Every NFL running back shows as obese on it. When you say he wants to lose weight it's vague. Five or ten pounds? I'd say let the mirror decide.

Forget BMI. I'm fairly lean and muscular with decent height but the chart still calls me obese.

BMI isn't completely useless but it's flawed and works better alongside other measures. The Hamwi method for ideal body weight is one option. Depending on goals, weight may matter less than looks or body fat percentage. There's nuance that gets ignored. BMI was made for population guidelines so outliers like bodybuilders or people with unusual bone structure fall outside. It was also built mainly on white male data. Still, it can help when combined with other numbers.

It depends heavily on frame. I look back at what weight felt and looked good before. At 6'2" I thought 190 lb looked decent, but once I got there I saw my fat distribution was off so I had to drop to 185 lb. Some friends my height carry 20 lb more and still have abs, while another is 20 lb lighter and just naturally lean and lanky. The heavier ones aren't necessarily more muscular, they just have bigger frames and carry fat differently.

I don't put much stock in BMI since I lift heavy. I have a couple goal weights in mind but they're based on how I looked and felt back in college.

A bag of long bones, that's funny. Off topic, but is he single? I have a tall beautiful daughter.

Body fat percentage from a DEXA or just from how you look is the way to go. I'm 6'1.75" at 194 lb, one pound from the top of the normal BMI range. I always thought BMI was nonsense but now that I'm near normal it doesn't seem entirely wrong, though it still doesn't fit everyone. My last DEXA points toward 180 lb next, where body fat should drop to around 15 % and abs become visible. That's more my real goal than any scale number.

About 13 years ago when I was 35 and unemployed I swam two hours a day for three months. I reached 280 lb, the lowest in 30 years, at roughly your son's height. I wasn't thin but could see the start of abs in good light. I stopped all blood pressure meds and my resting heart rate hit 37 bpm. Still considered obese by BMI but it didn't feel that way.

Plenty of words here but the short version is BMI is just a quick rule of thumb for busy care providers. Once you understand that, it makes no sense to treat it as the main point in any discussion.

I'm over 6' and once got barely into the healthy BMI range. Everyone said I looked sick and I became so anemic I ended up in the hospital needing transfusions. The charts are way off for tall people unless you're basically a stick.

Weight itself isn't the key. It's how you feel. I'm thick built. At 5'10" I look and feel best at 210 lb. When I was 180 lb people asked if I was ill.

BMI is just one tool and it's inaccurate at both ends of the spectrum. I'm 6'2" with 196 lb of lean mass on my last DEXA, and I'm not even very muscular. Even at a shredded 11 % body fat around 220 lb I'd still be labeled obese, roughly 50 lb above the middle of the healthy BMI range.

If you skip a DEXA, waist circumference is the easiest next step. It often predicts health risks better than BMI, is simple to track, and doesn't change much with height or muscle.

Let's focus on health goals instead of weight or BMI numbers.

Despite campaigns against it, BMI keeps proving itself a strong screening tool for weight-related health risk across huge data sets. Body fat percentage and muscle mass measures have been studied too but aren't more accurate. BMI's job is fast initial screening, not perfect individual diagnosis. Visceral fat is what really drives risk, and once you account for it only about 9 % of people labeled obese by BMI actually show elevated risk from that.

The mistake was aiming for the middle of a range that mixes both sexes. Men tend to sit higher in the normal BMI range, so the male middle is around 180 lb. Even 174 lb at 6'3" isn't skin and bones. Normal BMI goes up to 199 lb. Health risk starts rising only after that, and becomes clear in the obese range. So the practical answer is no more than about 200 lb, plus keeping visceral fat low and waist size in check. Waist tends to grow after age 25.