Fifty plus size offended or not??

[medusa]

A new scale should be developed.

Surely the obsession with numbers should lead them to improve the scales that they measure against. Particularly when the flaws are so well known.

 

It really should, but it doesn't appear to have done so thus far.

 

At least the BMI is an improvement on the old height/weight charts that only had figures for people who were within a very small range from the mean anyway.

 

When my back first had problems and I got referred into the Northern General to discuss the gross abnormalities and what they may be able to do about them, my surgeon commented that I didn't look very overweight (that's because I wasn't) but that I needed to get down to the figure on the height/weight chart before he'd operate.

 

I didn't have a problem with that, but I did have a problem with the weight range he gave me as what he wanted to see because he picked the tallest height off the chart and just gave me that weight as a target. The problem was that the tallest height on the chart was 7 inches shorter than me!

 

Moving over on to BMI gave me another 2 and a half stone in the 'healthy' weight range, and I was only just over that range, although at that stage I was swimming twice a day and doing lots of gym work, so the extra was muscle rather than fat.

[Isabelle]

And anyway what's advertised as a 36" measurement isn't; manufacturers collude to flatter the fatter figure.

 

I was reading about how women's clothes sizes have got larger over the years. Apparently Marilyn Monroe, who is often described as being a UK size 16, the average size, was probably a UK size 8 in modern sizing.

At 5'5 1/2" and 53.5kg she was very similar to my size, although I am an inch taller. I am a size 6/8, but more muscular.

Maybe people's bodies have just got bigger over the years?

Edited April 24, 2015 by Isabelle

[Olive]

It's a very good point. If slightly over weight is correlated with lower mortality, then we should redefine that as the ideal weight.

 

 

I came across this article in the Telegraph

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/features/why-being-overweight-means-you-live-longer-the-way-scientists-twist-the-facts-10158229.html?origin=internalSearch

 

 

It seems there's fair bit of evidence to say that "overweight" (by current BMI standards) is actually the optimum weight for good health and longevity, but no-one wants to admit this.

 

"Despite the fact that study after study has demonstrated quite clearly that "overweight" people live the longest, no one can bring themselves to say: "Sorry, we were wrong. A BMI between 25 and 29 is the healthiest weight of all. For those of you between 20 and 25, I say, eat more, become healthier." Who would dare say such a thing? Not anyone with tenure at a leading university, that's for sure."

Edited May 6, 2015 by Olive

[Tommo68]

Walking round Page Hall, I can see that big is definitely NOT beautiful

 

If only that we're possible. . . I find it very frustrating when I'm walking through a shop and there's an overweight person wobbling about in front of me, taking up most of the aisle and I have to squeeze past them.

 

I know that nobody wants to be that big, but please, think of us normal folk for once!

 

You raise some good points, the truth can hurt but that's life.

 

 

'E' numbers are mere shorthand for ingredient names. The numbers aren't "banned" as such!

 

Good point Jeffrey. Its amazing what you have to tell some people.

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If being over weight is such a potentially fatal health risk then and if we are all being honest a lot a people will agree with me if not admit to it but I can think of a few people who's ideal weight ought to raised.. a lot.

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[Jeffrey Shaw]

I can remember when BMI was just an airline.