Reply to Why were people so skinny in the 70s and 80s

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]This is what gets me thinking - to what extent is BMI at all a valid way of evaluating things?

It's just kind of mindblowing. So if the healthy BMI is between 18.5-25, then a 5'4 woman should weigh anything from just under 110 to just over 140. At 118-120, I'm at the lower end of normal, but I don't think of myself as thin at all. I'm athletic and maybe even bulky to some. In the 70s and 80s, I'd probably be considered thick, having a good sized booty for a white woman. It seemed like normal/thin for a young woman at that time would be a BMI under 20. Now, by BMI I am absolutely "skinny" in comparison, at the 15th or so percentile. It's mindblowing that the average woman of my height weighs 50 lbs more than me. The AVERAGE! Which means, by standard deviation, there could very well be more people who weigh 100 lbs more than me than those who weigh less than me. That is absolutely nuts and should not be normalized. Normalize health, not disordered eating, in either direction.[/quote]

BMI is such a terrible measure the military  doesn’t really use it because most men can’t go through basic training, gain all that muscle and still have a healthy BMI.[/quote]

Most people don't have the activity level of someone in boot camp.  BMI is one indicator, if you are outside of healthy range, it's an indication that more analysis is needed.  Do you have an extremely small or large frame?  Are you extremely muscular?  Are other health indicators in a healthy range?  Just one measurement but an easy one.  [/quote]

The vast majority of women are not capable of having enough muscle mass to through them into an unhealthy BMI while having a low body fat.  If you are a women, not an elite athlete or body builder, and have a BMI over the healthy range, you are overweight. [/quote]

I disagree. You take any girl that is 5'9" above they have the body mass and muscles to make BMI very unreliable. There is actually a lawsuit against the military the lays out the science, because BMI isn't used for men but is was being used against women. The women won.

You don't understand the science.[/quote]

I was in the military.  They don’t use BMI, what are even talking about.  If you are overweight, they measure various parts of your body and plug those into an equation to get a sense on your body fat. [/quote]

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