I was carrying a little too much weight about 25 pounds ago. Oddly, I'm eating less and better than I was then, but I'm also significantly older (it ain't just the number of years, but the particular time of life) and I'm getting less exercise overall. So no real surprise or confusion as to where the extra weight came from.
Still, I was half-amused and half-indignant when I calculated my Body Mass Index. It was absolutely not accurate, which is an ironically modest way of saying that it gave me a ludicrous result. It may as well have told me that my ideal weight was 45 pounds.
I expected "overweight" as a foregone conclusion, and was prepared for the lower end of "obese". And that's what I got, so no big deal there.
What I didn't expect was when I typed in the weight that I carried for much of my adult life, and it still said "obese". Okay, I thought, so I was a little more out-of-shape all of those years than I thought. So it goes.
What I was confounded by was when I typed in my ultimate target weight -- the weight that I'd need to achieve in order to no longer think of myself as fat at all -- and it only dropped to "overweight". And not the edge of overweight -- the upper end of the range. I'd have to be over 5 inches taller before that weight would be considered "normal".
The two or three times in my life that I was at that weight, I was in pretty bad shape. As far as looks go, my head seemed gigantic and my bones showed through my skin. I was also in a bad frame of mind; even ignoring the fact that I was clinically depressed (up to and including suicidal), I was overly concerned about my health, to the point of neurosis.
I only call it my "target weight" because I imagine that I could potentially get there and maintain it without depression and anxiety, in the best of all possible worlds. I don't really expect to see it before the end of my life.
Of course, now I know that even if I do get there, I'll still be overweight. In fact, I'd be overweight for another 25-30 pounds UNDER that target weight. That's not encouraging.
It's also not realistic, and makes me deeply suspicious. That's something more than just 'somewhat inaccurate'...it's laughably wrong.
I guess if I went by the BMI, I'd have to come to terms with the fact that I will never, ever get to a "normal" weight unless I'm dying of some horrible disease or held in some sort of concentration camp.
For me, with a certain amount of perspective and a healthy criticism for 'official' guidelines, it's easy not to take it too seriously. I can only imagine what such wildly inaccurate and impersonal guidelines would do to someone who believed that the BMI had some value.
I can easily see where the BMI could do a lot of harm to someone, physically and mentally, who is trying to lose 75 pounds because it says that's where they should be, when dropping 25 pounds would get them to a perfectly healthy and attractive weight.
So folks, I don't know if the BMI works for you, but for me it's kinda like the Department of Transportation saying that 120 mph is the ideal speed for your commute. In other words, it ain't realistic, it ain't yer friend, and it ain't worth the electronic paper that it's printed on.
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