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Nutrition I am always hungry

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The guy asked for advice on his appetite. My point was that for that some background information is required. Do you reckon it wouldn't make a difference if he said his BMI is 20 or 40?

As to BMI being clinical, it is used, for example, as the cutoff for bariatric surgery. Surgery is part of clinical medicine.
@Damiola, this is unnecessarily argumentative. This is a strength and conditioning forum, and there can be healthy, strong athletes with a wide range of BMI numbers. For our purposes, it’s not useful. We aren’t giving advice about bariatric surgery. (And if someone’s doctor is using that as a metric, I’d recommended they get a second opinion.)

I’ve gotten slightly shorter as I’ve gotten older, a normal and common thing, and like most people, my weight fluctuates over a range of a few pounds. If I put in my current height and my worst-case weight, which is about 4 lbs more than I weighed this morning, an online BMI calculator tells me I’m obese, which is just ridiculous because, in our community here, I’m skinny. But 5’6” and 156 lbs is obese.

-S-
 
BMI is a screening tool, used in clinical and sports medicine. Like any tool it should be used in proper context. Let me give you an example. Get an image of the following answers in your mind:

1. This guy is 20 years old, BMI is 20 and he runs 70 km a week
2. He is 20 years old, BMI is 28, he lifts heavy
3. He is 55 years old, doesn't do much exercise, his BMI is 32
4. He is 42 years old, his BMI is 20, he doesn't do any exercise

Are you getting my point? Every one of these answers leads to more questions. In medicine it is called history taking. Yes, it would be more useful to know body fat percent, but the number of people who know it are dwarfed by the number that can figure their BMI.

So. Don't dismiss BMI as "useless tool". Because it is not.
 
Your point is not hard to understand, but it is no relevant for this thread. BMI is not useful for fitness community and hip to waist ratio is? How likely is it to see a very muscular athlete with high BMI and high waist to hip ratio?

I explained my reasoning for the use of BMI in the previous post, and you don't seem to be able to argue against it.

I apologise if this post comes across as confrontational, I don't mean it to be. Just facts and my professional experience.
 
I keep personal life separate from the Internet. We are arguing about the usefulness of BMI, let's keep it at that.
 
I think the point is that, after you gather all of the additional metrics needed to give context to someone's BMI, you can pretty much discard the BMI itself.
 
Studies show that BMI starts to be useful for predicting risks on individuals only for very obese people. There is even a (controversial) study showing that having a BMI over 25 is better than under 25 (the "normal" upper limit). Not very useful for a conversation in a fitness context.

To come back to history, Ancel Keys, who seems to be the first to have used the term BMI in a paper in 1972, states that it is useful in studying population, not assessing individuals.

But as it is easy to measure, insurance companies (not medical doctors) in US started to use it. Easy to measure does not mean useful, however.
 
Your point is not hard to understand, but it is no relevant for this thread. BMI is not useful for fitness community and hip to waist ratio is? How likely is it to see a very muscular athlete with high BMI and high waist to hip ratio?

I explained my reasoning for the use of BMI in the previous post, and you don't seem to be able to argue against it.

I apologise if this post comes across as confrontational, I don't mean it to be. Just facts and my professional experience.
You have yet to provide any facts, only personal opinion.
 
I explained my reasoning in the post above. To remind everyone:

BMI is a screening tool, used in clinical and sports medicine. Like any tool it should be used in proper context. Let me give you an example. Get an image of the following answers in your mind:

1. This guy is 20 years old, BMI is 20 and he runs 70 km a week
2. He is 20 years old, BMI is 28, he lifts heavy
3. He is 55 years old, doesn't do much exercise, his BMI is 32
4. He is 42 years old, his BMI is 20, he doesn't do any exercise

Every one of these answers leads to more questions. In medicine it is called history taking

If anyone can point to the flaw in the logic above feel free to point it out.

Bunn, you are correct. It's all my personal opinion. Frankly, I don't know why I added that line, especially the apology. Once again, feel free to point out the flaw in my logic.
 
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If anyone can point to the flaw in the logic above feel free to point it out.
This is not a clinic; we are not doctors, sports-medicine or otherwise. And we make it a point not to give out medical advice here, which means that whatever may be useful to a doctor or in a clinic isn't necessarily something a group of strength and conditioning trainees need consider.

IMO, that is the flaw in your logic posted on the StrongFirst forum.

-S-
 
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