{"id":260786,"date":"2022-02-04T10:15:03","date_gmt":"2022-02-04T15:15:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.oviahealth.com\/?post_type=article&p=260786"},"modified":"2023-06-12T22:31:49","modified_gmt":"2023-06-13T02:31:49","slug":"breaking-down-bmi","status":"publish","type":"article","link":"https:\/\/www.oviahealth.com\/guide\/260786\/breaking-down-bmi\/","title":{"rendered":"Breaking down BMI"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

When you have your first prenatal appointment, there are certain lifestyle changes your provider will recommend \u2013 stop drinking, take a prenatal vitamin, and maybe, for those in bigger bodies, start to track your weight gain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But what if you found out that BMI is not a useful indicator of your health? BMI is actually a deeply flawed calculation that was only intended to be used for populations, not for individuals. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s break down the fraught history behind BMI.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

BMI: The backstory<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

BMI (first called the Quetelet Index<\/a>) was invented by a Belgian mathematician (you read that right, not a doctor) named Lambert Adolphe Jacques Quetelet in the early 19th century. He set out to find the \u201caverage man\u201d by studying the height and weight of (mostly) European men. His work excluded women and people of color. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

BMI, a calculation of weight (in kilograms) divided by height in (meters squared), was later picked up by health insurers and medical providers in the U.S. They used various BMI categories (underweight, normal weight, overweight, obese, and morbidly obese) to determine insurability and individual health. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is this starting to raise some red flags for you?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

OK, but does it work?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The short answer is no, it does not work and there are a few reasons why.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. BMI was originally created to indicate population health, not to determine individual health.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Quetelet was a statistician. His intention was to collect large amounts of data to uncover population-level trends, not to assess an individual\u2019s health or risk factors. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

2. These categories are problematic for individuals who were left out of the original studies<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Given the fact that so many groups were excluded from the development of BMI in the first place, it doesn\u2019t make much sense to apply it to them retrospectively. Further, BMI suggests that there is an ideal height\/weight ratio. This is simply not true.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

3. BMI equates muscle, fat, and bone<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The body is made up of (among other things): bones, muscles, and fat. BMI groups all these categories together into one, treating bone, muscle, and fat the same. Not only that, but which out of these three parts of the body weighs the most? Bone. The least? Fat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So is there a better way to calculate health?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

There are alternative calculations of health informed by weight, but the issue at play here goes far beyond the biased history of BMI or its misguided application to individuals, because even weight itself is not a strong indicator of health. Research has shown<\/a> that simply changing one\u2019s body weight is not a reliable measure of improvement in one\u2019s health. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you\u2019re looking to feel stronger and healthier, there are things you can do, like starting a health promoting behavior. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here are a few examples of health promoting behaviors<\/h3>\n\n\n\n