Obese again

Who changed the rules? The WHO? Some company? Insurance companies?

You could just decide not to feel sad the same way they decided to move the numbers around.

Who exactly is “they”?

BMI is nonsense anyway. Pay attention to your own numbers and stop worrying so much.

BMI works fine for comparing big groups of people, which is what it was made for. Using it on single patients in healthcare is one of the dumbest ideas around. Throwing in waist-to-height ratios is just trying to dress up a bad idea.

The new rules came from the European group that studies obesity and were just picked up by the American Diabetes Association.

Thanks.

I hit my peak fitness with a bmi of 32 and body fat at just nine percent. That kind of measurement always struck me as pointless.

Losing that much weight is a big achievement. I dropped 30 lbs last year and am now at 195. The charts still say I am overweight, yet I have not been this size or this fit since high school wrestling twenty years ago. We should not let outside authorities decide how we feel about our own bodies. Keep tracking your own wins because you are the one who matters.

I know the feeling. I used to treat BMI like the final word until I stopped. I thought it mattered because you had to meet the obese cutoff to qualify for the medication. Maybe the B stands for something else. Also, I never agreed to have any photo of me shared.

This is how they turn healthy people into patients who need drugs. Drop the cholesterol numbers and suddenly millions more qualify for statins. Lower the blood pressure targets and millions more get put on meds. If the change makes it easier for more people to get the medication covered, maybe it ends up helping.

The drug companies shifted the targets so doctors can write more prescriptions and make more money. You already ignored the big companies when you started the medication that is still in trials, so why pay attention to them now? You have lost a lot of weight and should feel good about it. Keep going and focus on your own progress. Well done.

Probably drug companies pushing to get more insurance coverage for the brand-name version by making the cutoff easier, since lots of people have switched to other options.

I do not see myself as obese. I am built like a god, unfortunately that god is Buddha.

I am 62, male, 5 foot 10, 192 lbs. BMI was built for younger people and calls anything over 174 overweight for my height. For most middle-aged and older men who are reasonably fit, a BMI between 25 and 27 actually lines up with lower death rates than the so-called ideal of 22 to 23, mostly because of risks tied to losing muscle and bone strength. Muscle really does seem to be what keeps you going.

I am at 14 percent body fat with a BMI of 26. BMI gets too much weight.