BMI in Prespective

• Jason E.
  October 3rd, 2007 at 11:21 am

  I’m calling bull**** on this one.

  The girl referred to as “Pippin” (The one on the far left in the above photo) Is said to be 5′10″ & 191.6lbs.

  There is absolutely no way she weighs almost 200lbs. I’m not saying that I agree 100% with the BMI numbers. However this is either a mis-labled photo, or an obvious effort to skew perspective.

• Jason E.
  October 3rd, 2007 at 11:22 am

  **edit**

  I said she’s referred to as “Pippin”. It’s actually “Pippa”

• meg
  October 3rd, 2007 at 11:33 am

  trust me. not mislabled. it’s easy to be “obese” or “overweight” yet look normal weight, especially if you do muscle-building exercises.

• Miss Cellania
  October 3rd, 2007 at 11:33 am

  Ya know, after I posted this, I read the comments at Metafilter. One addressed this: I don’t think men know how much women really weight most of the time, because women are not telling -most of the time. An average-looking woman who weighs 140 pounds, if asked, will fudge and say she’s 120. So the guy who she told will think a woman who weighs 140 must look bigger than the woman in question. Over a few episodes, its no wonder men think those Playboy models really are 5′11″ and weigh 110 pounds as printed. I can believe Pippa weighs 190. She dresses well, too.

  I threw out my scales a couple years ago, but I can guess my own weight -am I’m NOT tellin’!

• Gitai
  October 3rd, 2007 at 12:05 pm

  It’s odd. I can recognize a muscular woman, since I work out in a dojo full of them, and see how their muscle skews their BMI. I also looked at a lot of normal women and thought they were way too skinny.

  But when I looked at the one guy who was underweight, all I could think was, “Hot.” We gay men really are pigs.

• donna
  October 3rd, 2007 at 12:06 pm

  I’m 5′5″ and 160, mostly lean muscle mass and hips that don’t quit.

  Pippa is easily 190 if she’s 5′10″ - she’s just about my build.

• salsa
  October 3rd, 2007 at 12:27 pm

  huh… looks like four people to me…:o

• Guido
  October 3rd, 2007 at 12:38 pm

  Well … your perception seems to be skewed. Just because everybody in America runs around being overweight, you think that’s somehow normal. Let me tell you: It’s not. You’re just all fat, and you don’t believe that you are because everybody else is too.

• just a guy
  October 3rd, 2007 at 12:44 pm

  Gitai - gay men aren’t pigs, so much as ALL men are pigs. There are exceptions, of course, for both gay and straight men, but generally speaking…

  (And yes, I am male)

• MidwestMedic
  October 3rd, 2007 at 1:52 pm

  Maybe it’s an effect of living in an overweight community, but those that were listed as overwieght and even a few that were obese looked best to me….hmmm

• ashley
  October 3rd, 2007 at 1:52 pm

  THOSE PEOPLE CANT WEIGH THAT MUCH, I AM VERY SMART AND I KNOW EXACTLY HOW MUCH STRANGERS WEIGH SO EVERYONE MUST BE LYING ABOUT THEIR WEIGHT, THATS THE MOST LOGICAL CONCLUSION BECAUSE THERE IS NO WAY THAT THIS PROJECT WAS SET UP TO SHOW ME I AM WRONG BECAUSE I AM ALWAYS RIGHT. IT DOESNT MATTER ANYWAY BECAUSE ALL YOU AMERICANS ARE FAT AND GOING TO DIE IN TWO WEEKS UNLESS YOU GO ON A 500 CALORIE A DAY DIET, AND YOU SHOULD FOR YOUR HEALTH. THATS WHY IM TELLING YOU THIS, NOT BECAUSE IM SOME JUDGEMENTAL PRICK BUT BECAUSE I CARE ABOUT YOUR HEALTH. THATS WHY FAT CHILDREN GET BULLIED, DONT YOU KNOW THAT NEGATIVE REINFORCEMENT WORKS REALLY WELL? IT’LL HELP ALL THOSE FATTIES IN THE LONG RUN. IM A GREAT PERSON, YOURE ALL JUST BELIEVING A LIE BECAUSE IM THE SMARTEST PERSON IN THE WORLD AND I KNOW THE ANSWERS TO EVERYTHING

• Fresh
  October 3rd, 2007 at 2:35 pm

  This just goes to show you how badly inaccurate BMI can be.

  BMI doesn’t account for muscular or athletic people, so someone who is really fit can be overweight according to BMI since muscle weighs more than fat.

• Blaise Pascal
  October 3rd, 2007 at 2:43 pm

  Jason E.:

  My girlfriend is 5′9″, 190 pounds. Her build is similar to the image above. I find it perfectly believable.

• Retrokatze
  October 3rd, 2007 at 3:18 pm

  Why has my comment been deleted? Are links to wikipedia disallowed now?

• bitter_suburbanite
  October 3rd, 2007 at 3:32 pm

  Well, I don’t know if it was intended this way, but looking at that gallery only confirmed my opinions of what constitutes overweight and obese for women. Every single one of those classifications was spot-on. And that one Jabba look-alike that was claiming to be a triathlete seems to be deluding herself. Standing at the starting line does not make you athletic.

• Desmondus
  October 3rd, 2007 at 4:06 pm

  It amuses the heck out of me to look at this picture of my friend and know that, according to the BMI, she’s at a ‘normal’ weight at that time. Low end yes, but 19.5.

  Warning: Drastic corsetry in link
  http://www.spook.dk/images/14/mjmorning2.jpg

• aware
  October 3rd, 2007 at 5:44 pm

  ew, that drastic corsetry is one of the grossest things i’ve seen in a long time.

• Jacki
  October 3rd, 2007 at 6:42 pm

  I find it believable. The photo of the woman on the left is illuminated with really bright light from the back. It works like black making you slim. Makes it harder for the viewer to see the outline of the figure.

  I found the many photos of the women of bigger sizes very flattering. They dress their bodies really well. I’m jealous. : )

• shihui
  October 3rd, 2007 at 11:21 pm

  i agree with Fresh on the drawbacks of using BMI as a means of gauging whether you’re healthy or not.

• Alex
  October 4th, 2007 at 2:04 am

  @Desmondus and aware, if you want to see extreme corset, check out our old post about Cathie Jung’s 15 inch waist.

  Re: BMI, it has limitations b/c it’s dependent on height and body type. BMI will overestimate the amount of fat on lean athletes and underestimate fat on an elderly person.

• Jason E.
  October 4th, 2007 at 8:47 am

  I am 5′11″ and I weigh 160′lbs. I’m looking at Pippa and unless she’s the most cleverly hidden muscle bound beast on the planet… I’m sorry… there’s just no way she weighs 190′lbs. Maybe she ways 160 or 170, but 190? I’m sorry. It’s just not true.

• Jason E.
  October 4th, 2007 at 8:49 am

  **edit**

  “Maybe she weighs…”

  Sorry for the typos. In a bit of a hurry this morning.

  BTW: I definately think there is too much pressure on young women to be too skinny. I’m just saying that this particular example of BMI numbers being skewed is actually skewed itself.

• Justin
  October 4th, 2007 at 9:15 am

  So let me get this straight…

  http://flickr.com/photos/77367764@N00/1458077972/in/set-72157602199008 819/

  She weighs 66 pounds more than…

  http://flickr.com/photos/77367764@N00/1454491085/in/set-72157602199008 819/

  (there is only 2 inches in height difference)

• Justin
  October 4th, 2007 at 9:17 am

  hmmm my post didn’t go through. Well basically I compared that first woman (191.6 lbs) with another woman on that list who weighed 125 lbs. 66 pound difference seems a little extreme to me.

• Justin
  October 4th, 2007 at 9:20 am

  Hmmm my posts aren’t coming through. Can someone explain how that one picture of the 3 girls. The one who is 5 foot 4 inches is taller than the girl who is 5 foot 11 inches. and the girl in the middle is only slightly shorter at 5 foot 3 inches.

• Guido
  October 4th, 2007 at 9:33 am

  My comment was a bit overly drastic, and yes of course, overly athletic people come off worse with the BMI. Myself I did a lot of sports for some time, built up a lot of muscle with 5+ trainings a week for over two years - and still I was “normal”. Top end of the spectrum of course, but still normal. Then I stopped doing sports and put on 20-30 lbs - and it was all fat I can see it everywhere

  So yes, the BMI is skewed a bit, muscle is heavier than fat and all, still it’s not that far off. And putting yourself in a corset like the middle picture of this post doesn’t make you slim - it only makes you _look_ slim, that woman is still overweight underneath

• Justin
  October 4th, 2007 at 9:43 am

  Ok I’m looking at this bloggers website, can anyone tell me how she arrived at the height and weight? Because Im pretty damn sure she didn’t weigh and measure each person.

• Miss Cellania
  October 4th, 2007 at 9:48 am

  Guido, that’s the point -Wonder Woman may LOOK “overweight”, but according to her BMI, she is “morbidly obese”.

  Jason E, its different for a woman. At the same height, a woman will normally carry quite a few more pounds just in boobs and butt than a man, without looking any fatter.

• Guido
  October 4th, 2007 at 10:40 am

  Sorry Cellania, I didn’t look it up - I actually meant to write “obese” at first, but looking it up would have been too much work for me and “overweight” really means “weight above normal”, by whatever amount, unless we’re talking BMI categories. Which I should have been, sorry.

  As a matter of fact, she’s about twice as large as a regular person of her size, her girth is (even with the corset) larger than her chest should be; so “morbidly obese” quite fits her I’d say.

  The thing is that the BMI might be off by a bit for people who do a lot of sport, but what “overweight” and “obese” stands for is “increased risk of weight-related illnesses”, which is a statistical fact (and yes I know you can skew statistics, but skewing might range from putting her between “obese” and “incredibly morbidly obese”, certainly not “normal”), and the exact amounts of overweight the different names stand for is a matter of definition only.

• Guido
  October 4th, 2007 at 10:42 am

  “Jason E, its different for a woman. At the same height, a woman will normally carry quite a few more pounds just in boobs and butt than a man, without looking any fatter.”

  Yes, but at the same time, she will also have less muscle mass (on average), thus in the end with the same weight as a man of her size her tissue will (again, on average) have a higher fat percentage.

• Jason E.
  October 4th, 2007 at 10:47 am

  Miss Cellania: I can conceed that point. Maybe I’m wrong… I just thought the numbers seemed a bit steep. However, if she’s very muscular, large breasted, and has a developed posterior she may very well weight just under 200lbs.

• Desmondus
  October 5th, 2007 at 5:28 am

  Alex,

  spook actually had a measured waist of 14 at one point but chose not to have guiness get involved because she didn’t maintain it constantly. Technically, she was smaller waisted than Jung.

  http://www.spook.dk

• Kamazon
  October 8th, 2007 at 9:59 pm

  Oy. Jason E., you need to relax. I’m six feet tall and weigh 210. Here’s my profile on Model Mayhem:

  http://modelmayhem.com/pics.php?id=366845

  I come from Germans and Danes with heavy, dense bones and big muscles. When I’m working out a lot I tend to gain weight; when I’m less fit I actually weigh less.

  Women lie about their weight all the time, and I find over and over again that men have no concept of what women really weigh.

  Oh, and for the record, the BMI is bullshit and puts me about 1.5 points shy of obese.

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