5byfive said:
BMI works fine when you're looking at big groups of people. That's literally what it's built for. Using it to judge one person's health, though? That has to be one of the dumbest decisions we've ever made. Throwing waist to height ratios into the mix doesn't fix anything — it's just dressing up a pig.
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That is spot on. BMI was never intended to serve as a diagnostic instrument for individuals. For instance, if you look at a population sample and draw broad conclusions from it... For example, Japan's average BMI is 23 while the US sits at 29. In that context, BMI works well for gauging populations and their levels of excess weight.
What really drove home how flawed BMI is came when I came across the fact that Arnold Schwarzenegger, during his competitive bodybuilding days, had a BMI of 31.5, which classified him as obese under BMI criteria.