Academic

Is the body mass index calculator relentlessly harsh?

By Tung Yin

Throughout adolescence and early adulthood, I was perpetually underweight.  I ate a lot, but between a fast metabolism, cross-country (one season), tennis (two seasons), and Ultimate (throughout journalism school and law school), I was never more than 150 pounds at 5'10", and frequently, I was more like 135 pounds, or even less.

Somehow -- and there's probably a direct causation here -- when I started working as a lawyer, however, I broke past 160 pounds, and at times hit as much as 170.  I managed to get down to about 165, but when we moved to Oregon, my beloved treadmill did not make the trip with us.  For the first year and a half or so of being in Oregon, I was without that treadmill and too lazy/unmotivated/busy to find a gym, so I hit 170 or so again.

Now, I don't need the body mass index calculator to tell me that 170 is too much for me to weigh.  Per my height, that's a BMI of 24.4, which is still in the "normal range" for weight, but dangerously close to 24.9, which is the upper limit before you get classified as "overweight."  (Basically, another 3.5 pounds. . . .)  Some generous folks have told me that I didn't look nearly overweight last fall, so maybe I hid the extra pounds well.

Anyway, I found a nearby gym/club that I like and have been going there since the beginning of this year, and I've managed to drop about 8-10 pounds so far.

But wow, BMI is pretty harsh!  At 160 pounds, my BMI is still 23.0.  To put that in context, "normal weight" is a BMI range of 18.5 to 24.9.  The middle point of that range (~21.75) would correspond to 152 pounds for me.  It's not so much that 152 pounds is an unreasonable weight goal for me (I think at this point I'd be pleased with anything from 150-155 pounds), but that I could weigh as little as 128 pounds and still be considered normal weight per BMI.

128 pounds?  Really?  I mean, I know that we Americans are relatively overweight as a group, but is it really healthy for a 5'10" male to be below 135-140 pounds?

Full post as published by The Yin Blog on March 14, 2011 (boomark / email).