• I appreciate that it’s a discredited metric hence it’s not been mentioned, but the BMI is pretty brutal!!

    Too end for the acceptable zone for my height and age is more than I weighed in my early 20s when I was running competitively and playing tennis seriously (and, from looking back at photos, I didn’t have any spare).

    Is there a better/more realistic metric to consider?

  • As you probably know, BMI works for the majority of the population but falls down at upper or lower extremes of height or if the individual is carrying a lot of muscle. On an individual basis, you can’t go too far wrong by measuring your body fat and considering your aerobic fitness level. If you don’t use a body fat analyser, the ‘pinch an inch’ method round your middle is a pretty good indicator of body fat.

  • BMI is pretty harsh for me.
    Based on my height, it puts me in the obese category.

    49.2 to 66.4kg is healthy range supposedly.

    I look a bit chubby at the moment but definitely not obese. I have a decent amount of muscle, particular in my legs and I still (just about) fit in small t shirts.

    It’s a workable metric, not so much for the more muscly outliers.

  • DEXA scan is far more accurate than BMI.
    Lie on a table and an arm passes over you taking cross-sections.
    You get a picture of yourself with your fat showing up in yellow. Basically I look like a banana.
    Great for data nuts or OCD types. I got exact totals for fat, bone and muscle, and where I fit in the percentiles of the general population. The machine calculated my weight to within a tenth of a pound of what our fancy Tanita scale at home.

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