Re: Female characters

On 2007-06-04, Peter Knutsen penned:
Monique Y. Mudama wrote:
On 2007-06-04, Peter Knutsen penned:
[...]
A BMI between 25 and 30 is overweight, over 30 is fat. Various
sources give 20 or 18 as the limit below which you're underweight.
I've known plenty of women with BMIs slightly under 20 who were not
underweight, so I'd tend to go with 18, although 20 might work well
for men.

Pretty sure the meaning of BMI depends on gender.

Actually there is a strong idea, floating around, that there should
be one BMI range which works for both genders.

That's bizarre. At any given level of fitness, men have less bodyfat
than women. Of course, BMI doesn't take into account bodyfat, which
gets me back to asserting that its main value is in a "rule of thumb"
that doesn't require special tools, not in accuracy.

I've tried using calipers -- they are hard to use consistently, and they
pretty much require a second person to measure for you. So BMI is
something you can do using a standard scale and nothing fancy,
expensive, or difficult.

Personally, I'd say BMI should be about 1 to 1.5 points lower for
women than for men, on average. But then again, individuals vary.
BMI for me should probably be 1.5 or 2 points higher than for the
average man. I need to lose weight, but if I got all the way down to
a BMI of 20 I'd look skinny. Even with my current weight, my BMI
says I'm "fat" but I merely look "overweight".

http://www.nhlbisupport.com/bmi/

Huh, interesting, they sure do have only one set of rules listed, not
one for each gender.

--
monique
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Female characters
    ... sources give 20 or 18 as the limit below which you're underweight. ... I thimk BMI is as unhelpful as the current 'binge drinking' definitions. ... ought to' drinker any more than the 'heading for liver failure, ...
    (rec.arts.sf.composition)
  • Re: Female characters
    ... sources give 20 or 18 as the limit below which you're underweight. ... Pretty sure the meaning of BMI depends on gender. ... Actually there is a strong idea, floating around, that there should be one BMI range which works for both genders. ... I need to lose weight, but if I got all the way down to a BMI of 20 I'd look skinny. ...
    (rec.arts.sf.composition)
  • Re: Female characters
    ... For SI BMI, ... sources give 20 or 18 as the limit below which you're underweight. ... doesn't trust web sources anyway. ... I don't have internet at the moment anyway. ...
    (rec.arts.sf.composition)
  • Re: Fat is a feminist issue (was Re: Female characters)
    ... give 20 or 18 as the limit below which you're underweight. ... plenty of women with BMIs slightly under 20 who were not underweight, ... BMI works, without modifications, for most people. ... With minor modifications, I'm sure it works for almost all members of our species. ...
    (rec.arts.sf.composition)
  • Re: Female characters
    ... you're supposed to use kilograms and metres. ... sources give 20 or 18 as the limit below which you're underweight. ... substract another 10 percent for ideal weight" though yours ... I'll try to remember that BMI thing, ...
    (rec.arts.sf.composition)