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thirdculture_hog t1_j1mk2kk wrote

Reply to comment by SoupahCereal in Childhood body mass index is unlikely to have a big impact on children's mood or behavioural disorders by giuliomagnifico

What is your experience with the BMI system that makes you call it idiotic?

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giuliomagnifico OP t1_j1ml4dv wrote

BMI doesn’t consider the fat/lean mass but only the height and weight. Generally speaking can be inaccurate but for 8 years children is absolutely acceptable.

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thirdculture_hog t1_j1mm1ok wrote

I know what BMI is. I was trying to understand why that user thought it was idiotic. I’ve found it very useful for adults and children. However, for pediatric patients, the standard scale doesn’t apply, and percentiles are more useful. Lean patients with high BMIs are outliers and that is obvious clinically.

My point being, people keep talking about how BMI is a terrible metric but for most of the population, it is very useful.

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Poctah t1_j1mn0td wrote

Depends on the person. My daughter is 7 and she is 49 inches tall and 65lbs She is considered overweight by bmi standards but she does competitive gymnastics and competitive tumbling/trampoline never stops moving(she’s at the gym 12 hours a week and spends at least 6 hours a week at home practicing on her own) so she has a ton of muscle mass and 0 fat on her body. So for her bmi is bs. With that said you are right that with most kids/adults it can be helpfully but there is outliers like athletes that it doesn’t work for.

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weazelhall t1_j1mokt6 wrote

Your daughter sounds like a very focused athlete, but that's not the norm. Most children before 12 aren't working out so muscle to fat ratios tend to be a little more similar when they also have the same bmi numbers.

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b_tight t1_j1mos71 wrote

Probably says they or someone they know is obese and they dont like it

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nzfriend33 t1_j1mnos8 wrote

BMI only took into account white men and wasn’t intended to be used widely/for everyone. It’s…trash.

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thirdculture_hog t1_j1mobru wrote

I disagree. There are adjustments for gender and age. You do have a point about race differences. But they just means that you have to be mindful when calculating risks when you look at the patient. Overall, it’s still a great measure. You’ll be hard pressed to find a clinically significant difference when you start looking at obese individuals (by BMI) regardless of gender/race.

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