LogFAQs > #930346814

SunWuKung420 posted...

BMI is also a terribly flawed measurement.

When I weighed what the BMI said I should for my height, I looked like I was dying of terminal cancer or AIDS.

When I looked the best I've ever looked in my life, when I was at the peak of my athleticism and running track/weightlifting/playing soccer, I was about 25lbs "overweight" according to BMI.

It's a large part of why I kind of consider it bullshit, and dislike the idea of it ever being used for any sort of official purposes (like health insurance) or making sweeping generalizations about people's weight. It's not terrible at defining "average" body types and builds, but there are a metric fuck-ton of people out there who aren't even remotely average.

People should basically strive to maintain a healthy weight for their body frame based on lifestyle and bone structure, and not pick a specific "number" to aim for which might not accurately reflect what they should be in any way.

That being said, "big is beautiful" or "it doesn't matter if I'm 200lbs overweight as long as I'm healthy" are destructive mentalities of their own.



Moonjay posted...

I had the same bullshit when I lost a massive amount of weight. Treat me like shit all my life because I'm fat, pressure me to lose weight, and then tell me I'm looking too skinny and unhealthy at an absolutely ideal weight. Grr.

That's partly because people get used to seeing someone overweight, and when their appearance radically changes from weight loss, it looks "wrong" (and subconsciously, we associate that sort of wrongness with illness). Al Roker STILL doesn't look right to me, and he lost his excess weight almost 20 years ago.

But in some cases, that sort of reaction can also come if weight isn't quite being lost evenly. I've seen larger people who lose a ton of weight, but who still have fat faces from being overweight, which leaves their head looking like it's too large for their body.

Ironically, in most of those sorts of cases, it's the fact that we KNOW the person from before that makes them look worse to us. If you'd never seen one of these people before when they were overweight and only saw them for the first time when they were thinner, they'd probably look much more normal.
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