Stop Looking to BMI for Accuracy

Take a second to calculate your Body Mass Index here. Now I want you to ignore whatever result you got because it has most likely given you an inaccurate result and gives no accurate measure of your health.

Before beginning my research for this post, I would have thought that the Center for Disease Control and Prevention was a reliable source for health information. However their definition of Body Mass Index is completely inaccurate:

“Body Mass Index (BMI) is a number calculated from a person's weight and height. BMI provides a reliable indicator of body fatness for most people and is used to screen for weight categories that may lead to health problems” (CDC).

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            Seeing that the CDC described BMI as “reliable” is both laughable and harmful. BMI is an extremely flawed way to measure body fat. BMI uses just height and weight measurements to try to determine if someone is underweight, normal weight, overweight, or obese (Brunning). The problem is that BMI does not take into account a person’s body composition (Brunning). Athletes with large amounts of muscle mass will weigh more. They may show up on the BMI scale as overweight or even obese. BMI cannot tell the difference between muscle mass and body fat (Brunning).

            BMI also has absolutely nothing to do with how healthy an individual may be. Someone with heart disease may show up as “normal” on the BMI scale while someone overweight or obese may be perfectly healthy. This does not mean that a person is automatically in good health if they are overweight or obese (Prevent Disease). This just means that BMI is completely unrelated to health and other tests are needed to determine how healthy a person is.

            If an individual is concerned about their weight and their health, then the Body Mass Index is not the direction to look to. Judging someone’s health because of where they fall on the BMI scale is extremely ignorant. “There are many, many technically ‘overweight’ and ‘obese’ persons who eat balanced meals, watch their caloric intake, and exercise on a regular basis” (Adipose Activist).

            BMI has been used for 200 years now and scientists are working on new and more accurate ways to measure someone's body fat. BAI (Body Adiposity Index) uses height and hip measurements (Huffington Post). Taking waist/hip measurements has been seen to be more accurate in predicting health concerns such as diabetes and hypertension (Huffington Post).

            I find it very concerning how BMI is still accepted by many people as being accurate. I remember being so embarrassed when I had to have my BMI measured in middle school for FACS class. I also remember calculating my BMI years later when it was in the health section of Seventeen magazine. I was so concerned because I was “obese” according to the BMI scale. I now know that I should ignore this outdated way of measuring body fat and instead focus  on my health which can be determined in far more accurate ways.