Makes sense to me. I was at my most sedentary during the pandemic. That sedentariness kind of became a new normal. I'm still trying to change that
this post was submitted on 14 Jul 2025
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Yep became normal and is hard to break.
Makes sense to me. I was at my most sedentary during the pandemic.
Interestingly, some people, for the first time, got fit during the pandemic. There was a massive bike boom, people were out walking and hiking again, they invested in cooking at home, relaxation, better quality sleep, etc.
It's a shame that so many went backwards, though.
Oooof, was hopping we would not import this American tradition as well
...sorry, it was a long pandemic isolation π
To study this, Anderson and her team looked at the most recent self-reported body mass index (BMI) data from 746,250 Canadians who were 18 years or older between 2009 and 2023.
Maybe because BMI was never intended to be an indicator of health and is just a simple and dirty math formula invented by a Belgian astronomer 200 years ago?
https://www.urmc.rochester.edu/news/publications/health-matters/is-bmi-accurate
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-01-02/the-problem-with-the-body-mass-index-bmi/100728416
BMI is just weight and height, a pound of muscle, a pound of fat, a pound of bone...
Doesn't matter, a pound is a pound.
I failed BMI everytime I got measured in the military, they had to "rope and choke" which is a more time consuming method where waist/neck measurements were used. If I had still failed that, I'd have been given a buoyancy test as well for an even more accurate tests.
But it's hard to call someone obese after you just measured the circumference of their abs...
When used as an average of a population BMI isbetter but it was made based on what weights were considered healthy for a white man 200 years ago, way before protein and weight training. And when the average person was like 5'6.
Lots of clearly healthy white men are labeled obese because of that. And no one else was even involved in coming up with the system, so they've always been getting wrong results.
It's fucking insane we're still using this ancient flawed method when we have so many better ways. Especially since the largest determiner of height back then was access to enough calories when young. Pretty much everyone is getting that now. And reaching their max height which is where BMI has always been the most flawed.
Like, obesity is an undeniable problem. But BMI is the least scientific metric we could be using short of some bullshit like astrology signs. The obesity epidemic too serious to fuck around like this
yea, as a 6'5" 210lb guy, i hate BMI.
I have a bit of extra padding, but can run a 6 minute mile, and i have a 'normal' amount of body fat, with plenty of muscle... but since muscle is heavy, im in the overweight category according to BMI.
You are being downvoted, but you are correct.
BMI on it's own isn't a good metric. Waist measurement (i.e. measuring visceral fat around the gut) is a far better measure of health, and when used with BMI, you get a far more accurate picture of health than one over the other.
This is why you can have someone at a "healthy" BMI, but they are fat in the belly (and nowhere else!). Their health is a great risk, despite being a healthy weight and BMI.
I noticed my scale going up as I trained more for cycling, despite my body fat dropping). It's muscle weight, despite my BMI now being "worse" than when I was lighter with less muscle.
BMI isn't a valid indicator of health for (young) people with lots of muscle mass from weight training (e.g., competitive athletes). Those people are a relatively small group in society, however. BMI is a somewhat valid indicator of health for most members of society, which makes it a reasonable population health metric. It has its drawbacks and there's plenty of nuances to argue about but it's very easy to use, and that handiness earns it its popularity
BMI is a somewhat valid indicator of health for most members of society, which makes it a reasonable population health metric.
That's a half truth to some extent. Muscle mass isn't the only thing that fumbles the BMI math. The calculation is also notoriously less useful for women in general, and for black/latino women specifically even more misrepresentative. And even outside those groups BMI isn't really a "reasonable" health metric by today's standards. But it ins't totally useless either, so I guess it depends on what we mean with "reasonable".
and its also not properly weighted for height. at 6'5", I can be unhealthily thin and shown as 'nearly overweight"
BMI does work very well in diagnostics and statistical models, which is useful and trends to work better than separating the in inputs.
But I do agree it's not some magic be all measure.
BMI does work very well in diagnostics and statistical models
It does not ...
It barely worked when it was created and doesn't really mean shit now.
It's gives loads of people a false sense of security and then they latch onto it and just keep insisting it's fine even in the face of multiple sources that show the scientific community thinks its shit.
I guess if people needed an example of that, your comment did serve a purpose.
Well first off that paper is from 2025, but data collection for the OP study is as far back as 2009.
second this is the first line of the paper you indirectly linked:
current BMI-based measures of obesity can both underestimate and overestimate adiposity and provide inadequate information about health at the individual level, which undermines medically-sound approaches to health care and policy."
This study is not information at the individual level.
And here is a quote from later on in the abstract:
We recommend that BMI should be used only as a surrogate measure of health risk at a population level, for epidemiological studies, or for screening purposes, rather than as an individual measure of health.
E: OP's study actually cites the new obesity definition in it's methods to justify it's use of BMI:
Not all individuals with a BMI of 30 or higher will have impaired health or increased risk of death, and some individuals with a BMI below 30 may also have obesity.18 However, for population-level screening and surveillance, the use of BMI categories as a proxy for obesity in adults continues to be recommended.9,14
citation 14 is that study referenced in Scientific American!
So you also agree that studies point that BMI doesn't work very well in diagnostics? Because you're replying the statement with a boldened sentence agreeing with gp.
Or perhaps was the point that it's not true that "it doesn't really mean shit now" since the BMI still has some usefulness at the population level?
My point is that the op article and underlying paper is valid and valuable.
That's fair, though I also think it's fair to criticize the use of BMI and acknowledge all of its flaws. Perhaps mr givesofmefucks is just stating this position but with harsher wording.
I'm curious why you think there's an obesity epidemic if BMI as bad as you claim. Surely this means the problem is blown way out of proportion and the obesity rates are actually much lower?
Nope.
Because lots of obese people have healthy bmi's
They're usually the ones blowing badly defending it and haven't had blood work done in a decade. They have no idea how unhealthy they are
Sorry for the repeat questions but I'm not too knowledgeable on this; I thought BMI would have more false-positives (very muscular people for e.g.), but it seems you're saying false negatives are a greater concern.
Would that be people with extremely low muscle mass so they have a BMI that might only show as overweight but due to body fat percentage they're obese?
but it seems youβre saying false negatives are a greater concern.
Someone with a bad BMI but healthy will get further testing and told they're healthy...
Someone with a "good BMI" because they have bird bones and no muscle, just fat, will never have further testing done and always insist BMI is all that matters. You can see it anytime BMI comes up, people ignore all evidence that say they may need to look deeper than that single number.
Consider life in the 1830s to now, it would have been impossible for even the wealthiest to avoid exercise and consume as many calories as the average modern human. Shit just isn't comparable.
There's no logical reason to keep using it
While I agree with you that there can be a risk of skinny people missing diagnosis because they're "healthy", I think you're overestimating how well fat people are treated in healthcare. If a patient is fat, there is no further testing done. They're told to lose weight whether healthy or not, and regardless of whether it's relevant to their concerns or not. Obesity is still used as a cutoff to deny access to surgeries that will measurably improve their health, despite there often being no increased risk of complication.
As I said, I don't disagree with your issue about skinny causing medical neglect: the way our society, including medicine, blindly follows weight as the only thing that matters (examples above for fat individuals, telling skinny people with terminal illnesses they look great for having lost weight, amputating functional organs to cause malnourishment and by extension weight loss, even to folks who are arguably healthy and in a mid to low BMI range...) Is detrimental to everyone's well being.