Community Chat

[noodleann]

I thought if anything, they were going by BMI these days. That's certainly what the medical community is using to gauge risk and when clinical studies are run. The Metropolitan chart sidsmom posted doesn't define how to figure frame size, and given the nearly 40-pound spread (117 to 156 lb., adjusted for their 3 lb clothing allowance) from lowest weight for a small frame to highest weight for a large frame for a 5'6" woman, it matters.

BMI makes it much easier. It's possible to argue with the cut-offs, but it seems to roughly parallel the Metropolitan chart. For a 5'6" person (no gender specified), the lowest healthy weight is 115 and the highest is 150. Curiously, more medical studies are finding that being in the overweight but not obese category (155 to 180 in that 5'6" woman) may actually confer some health benefits with some conditions or diseases.

[Blahblahvampemer]

I am so ticked off with this BMI crud.  There you are getting weighed after two meals and fluids, clothes and shoes add on, and it all has zip to do with muscle weight.

To make it even worse, doctors get dinged if they don't list a weight, and my UNinsured file goes in with everyone else's so at least 12 government branches have access to my records.  I hope privacy will be an issue at some point.

[hckynut]

@qualitygal

Body weight alone tells a person very little. One has to know their percentage of body fat versus muscle tissue. Then throw in the fact that up to 70% of ones body weight is fluid. An average person knows their fluid retention varies, females even moreso, and that many times can be measured in several added pounds on a scale.

If one wants to know, the closest possible body fat to muscle ratio, the gold standard is still by Submersion Testing. It has roughly a +1% or -1% accuracy. So if you come up with 25% it could be from 24% to 26%, which is very small.

A caliper test on the other hand, even in the most skilled hands, can be a +10% or a -10% accuracy? So if you reading comes up at 25%, it could be as high as 35% of your body weight, or as little as 15%, when it comes to accuracy.

I have had the Submersion Test done 3 times, and at 10 and 20 lb differences in my scale weight. My body fat to muscle ratio was almost exactly the same. 1 test done at 134lb/123!b, and at 150lb. 

I am not suggesting to anyone to have this test done. I am just pointing out the fallacy of using any "weight only scale" to acess ones accurate Physiological makeup. I am more for a person going by how they feel, and maybe somewhat, how their clothes fit them in reference to weight loss or gain going a scale weight only.

To answer your specific question about "insurance company weight charts"? They are not worth the paper they use to print them.

hckynut(john)

[ECBG]

Insurance weight/height charts were developed after studies relating weight and deaths.  At certain weights for a person of specific height, mortality rates go up dramatically.  

If you desire fat muscle ratio, you need a different chart.

[Puzzle Piece]

I've used the vanity scale on weight. 

For people 5 feet it's 100 lbs.  Every inch after that is just three pounds.  Not the way many believe but it was what my generation of gals understood. 

[tsavorite]

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@Puzzle Piece wrote:

I've used the vanity scale on weight. 

For people 5 feet it's 100 lbs.  Every inch after that is just three pounds.  Not the way many believe but it was what my generation of gals understood. 

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WOW....don't know if that's a good idea.  I have always been on the slim side until recently....meno and working out I have put on weight.  Also was told I have osteopenia....and according to the osteoporosis foundation there seems to be a "magic" wieght for ladies less likely to fracture....127lbs.  Well I am finally at that weight!  Yet the math you have here would keep me at 112lbs (5"4).  

[Marienkaefer2]

I'm 5'4".   I wear a size 6-8 depending on the clothes, or a size S or M, depending on the clothes.

I don't fit into those charts.  My mom says it's because I have dense bones.  lol 

[tansy]

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@Puzzle Piece wrote:

I've used the vanity scale on weight. 

For people 5 feet it's 100 lbs.  Every inch after that is just three pounds.  Not the way many believe but it was what my generation of gals understood. 

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I believe we are of similar age, and it was five pounds for every inch, not three.  

[Tinkrbl44]

Within the past month or two, I saw an article stating that the BMI isn't the most accurate determination for health, and shouldn't rely so heavily on that .... now I will have to find it.   hmmm