Community Chat

[qualitygal]

To me those are like trying to get a herd of camels through the eye of a needle. Is that too sharp of a point?

I once had caliphers, but not sure of how great they are for determining things. I probably didn't do it right.

Don't you think since we are all so individual that there is a better way than those charts? I mean, even where they draw the line on obesity and morbidly obese. How do they determine where those lines are in catagories?

[Desertdi]

Google for more modern charts.......

[Pook]

I think they are just a guideline and really not 100% accurate.  I am 5' 4", a size 12 (on top need larger size due to a 40DD bust) but weigh 185-190 and no one can believe I weigh so much.  I am very fit and muscular so that is where the weight is.  I have a friend who weighs the same and is the same height but wears a size 20 and another who wears a size 16.  Neither are very muscular and more flabby with much smaller busts.  I have broad shoulders but neither do.  

[gidgetgh]

I haven't seen a weight chart in maybe 40 years.  It's not even on my radar.

[gardenman]

Weight alone pretty much tells you nothing. The challenge is always muscle mass and accounting for that. Two people of the same height and weight can have massively different body compostiions.

I think this is why men are generally not anorexic. The male ideal may be a middle linebacker for an NFL team who wears 250 pounds and stands six feet tall. If you stand six feet tall and you weigh 250, it's easy for a man to tell himself he looks just like that linebacker, or he would if he went to gym a bit more.(A whole lot more.)  

Women's ideals (at least to some) tend to be more the ultra tall, impossibly thin supermodels of the world who only seem to exist in the fashion magazines. It's very hard for a woman to fool herself into thinking she looks even remotely like that. If you're a five foot six inch woman who weighs 130 lbs. and you look at a six foot two supermodel who weighs 120 lbs. you can't really convince yourself to lose ten pounds and grow eight inches taller. It's an ideal that you'll never achieve. 

My goal in life is to stay somewhere close to where I should be, but not to worry about it too much. I've been as light as 155 (absolutely impossible for me to maintain) and as heavy as 242, but now I live somewhere in the middle of that range and I'm pretty happy and healthy. Just avoid the extremes in either direction and you'll be fine.

[cotton4me]

I’m not sure about those charts either.  They seem very general.  I’ve always weighed less than the charts say I should.  I was hospitalized last year and when the nurse weighed me he said “whoa”.  I said what’s wrong and he said it showed I was underweight.  It’s not underweight for me.  It’s my normal weight, always has been.   

[millieshops]

I have no real idea about insurance company charts because I don't know what they are supposed to be used for.  Are they a guideline for me to use personally, are they the way a company detemines how much insurance will cost me or if I even qualify for insurance, are they firm and fixed, sliding according to other measures of health, etc.

For me personally, guidelines from the companies or from weight-loss companies can only be guidlines.  I already know my body has its own weight issues that  I and my doctors need to consider;  when I last spoke to my GP about a desire to lose weight, he recommended a weight for me that was higher than I'd ever considered was my "ideal." 

Right now I'm about 4% below his estimate -   and guess what?  The areas of my body I'd most like to see looking better aren't where that 4% came from!  I'm not even sure that at my old-lady age, exercise is going to change me much, but that's what we're working on now.

Whoops -  forgot to say that the doctor's estimate for me is above insurance company charts for me height.

[GCR18]

I can't remember the last time iooked at one of those charts.  I go by how I look and feel.

[sidsmom]

Pretty much correct.

The optimum human weight won't change in 'modern' times.

These charts could be a zillion yrs old...and forever correct.

Friends in my PB Community will lose 50-100+lbs, get amazingly 

healthy inside & out...only to have people call them anorexic or

unhealthy...just because they are at the correct weight illustrated below.

Our modern day society has adopted 'fat eyes' by looking

at so many obese people for so many years.

Now a normal weight suddenly looks 'unhealthy.'

Only in America.

Classic.

Unfortunately, it's becoming worldwide.

-------

ETA: Just because you're at a low weight doesn't mean you're healthy. Excess weight is & never will be healthy, but we've heard of many cases where someone died of a massive heart attack while being slender & "looking healthy."  If only our bodies were turned inside out...we could really see what's going on. 

[ShowMe]

I have always understood that age is figured in to those numbers, but they don't show it on some charts.