Slashdot Mirror

Most people use the World Health Organization metric of a BMI of 30 to define obesity, but it's kind of a load of crap because it assumes that everybody is the same age and gender, both of which have different ranges for what is probably healthy and what isn't. What's best is if you figure out what weight percentile you reside in for your age and gender. This calculator for example:

http://halls.md/body-mass-inde...

If you're at 45 then you're in good shape. If you're 50 or above, then you will probably benefit from weight loss, but not necessarily. Believe it or not you can be obese by every definition and still be perfectly healthy. I dropped a lot of weight myself (about 90 lbs) because I have kidney disease caused by an immune disorder (IgA nephropathy) and being at a light weight reduces the burden on my weakened kidneys, meaning they'll last longer. (Light weight includes not having a lot of muscle mass either, as more muscle means more creatinine, which is fine for healthy people but bad if your renal system is compromised.)

Also I think the #1 thing anybody can do for fat loss is to remove all sugar from their diet. Most sugars found in sodas, candy, pastries, etc, has high amounts of fructose (and no, HFCS isn't alone here, ordinary cane sugar and even fruit based sugars contain basically the same amount) which is well documented to give you a caloric load without triggering the release of leptin in your blood to signal fullness. It also raises your LDL (bad) cholesterol and triglycerides (also bad.) Using that theory worked pretty well for me.

The rising rate of obesity *may* be because sugar has lowered in price over the last few decades, so now more people can afford more of it than in the past. It's one of those things that used to be a rich man's luxury, along with salt.

You do realize 110lbs is small for a fit girl under 5'4, right? Its a very low weight for anyone with even moderate height and muscle mass.

Considering http://www.halls.md/chart/women-weight-w.htm lists 110lbs as below the 5th percentile for 40-70 years old in women (never mind men), I think your comment is a little out of touch.

Here is a rough formula that will give you a relatively close estimate of your body fat % from your BMI: http://www.halls.md/bmi/fat.htm It correlates for sex and age. It isn't perfect (if you have a lot of muscle, or if you're like me and look anorexic, it'll be off by a small amount) but it correlated with another body fat calculator I found that used wrist/hip measurements to predict body fat percentage, which leads me to believe it'll be accurate for most of the population.

Attila, You are correct and that in individual people/patients, BMI has no correlation to body fat or obesity. However, in population studies, it has a fairly good correlation, and that is why we use it in health statistics and in cardiac disease prevention models. The equation I gave came from a population study of about 1200 patients, with widely varying BMI's and then their body fat was measured. In adults, the equation I gave was fairly accurate--with an R-squared of .79 and a SEE of 4%. So you are correct, but the formula does work for a quick guess of BMI -- just as BMI is a quick guess of obesity or not. Link to the website with the formula here -- http://www.halls.md/bmi/fat.htm

Google tells me that 17 stone is 238 lbs.

This BMI calculator says that to keep your BMI under 25 kg/m^2 you should be 222 or under. Or under 15.857 stones.

Just FYI.

I know you were going for the laughs associated with imagining a 280 lb man using some tiny phone, but in reality you're about 100 lbs over what the "average american man" weighs. This page only lists white males, but if you view the pages for each racial/ethnic breakdown 180lb is about average for all. I couldn't find any good links from Google, but I'm betting Europeans aren't really that much smaller at least not in the colder northern countries... the ones that make all those tiny phones.

"is one inch taller than WWII GI's because she's black and they were mostly white"

It would seem you don't know this, but there is no reason for a black or white person (or human for that matter) to be of any specific height range other than their social/economic & nutritional condition. Your statement is based on conditioned systemic racism.

quick list of charts googled
http://www.halls.md/chart/height-weight.htm

Why are Mexicans/Asians shorter on average to the average american? I'll leave that as an exercise for the reader ;D

80kg average for a fat person? Who do you think reads this, hefty 5'1" Cambodian girls?

(I apologize in advance for generalizing you like that, our chubby Cambodian goddess readers)

Ok, if you take average male height worldwide into account (which I think is 5'3" or 5'4", mainly due to lots of shorter men in eastern and SE Asia), but the average white male in the US is 5'10" (1.77m), and 80kg * 2.2lbs/kg = 176lbs is between the 50th and 75 percentile. 176 lbs is barely overweight for that height... I think you probably meant between 140 and 180kg (3-4 bills, as the idiom goes) - now there's some rolls of chub. 12 liters of joe may put one of those girthwide giants at a 50% death rate, but it'd almost certainly kill me, if they or the Cambodian goddesses didn't get to me first for this post.

I used to be like that and still am. I just can't really eat anything in the morning.

As a result, I was damn skinny until I hit my mid-thirties. Before that I could eat just about anything without exercising, but after, well, I just bloated. I gained ~30 kg in two years without changing anything in my diet or (lack of) exercise. Then my weight stabilized again. I was (am) overweight with a BMI of 28.4 kg/m2, but I could eat again just about anything without gaining weight - even if I didn't exercise which I do now.

This spring I began cycling to work (~18 km/day) and going regularly to the gym. Let's see what happens.

interesting sig.

Now, I don't know your gender, but lets make some suppositions:

If you are male, then you are asking females to either be rather petite (or anorexic), or pretty smart (IQ 145? That's pretty high.). Despite what some mags make you think, 100 lbs isn't the average weight a white female. Try 140 lbs for a 30 yr. old woman Halls Md. (this is the 50th percentile). This means that if you are male, then you are looking for a woman with an IQ of at least 140. 145 would put her at THREE standard deviations above the mean of the population (by definition), which only something like 0.01% of the population. Not bloody likely.

Now, if you are female, then this is even more unlikely--the 50th percentile of men at age 30 are 170 lbs; in order to surpass this mark they would need to have an IQ at LEAST 4.67 std. deviations above the mean. Percentage wise this is less than 0.0001% of the population. Even less bloody likely!

For information the current US population is about 270,000,000 (give or take). Assuming an even gender split, and saying 50% are over 18 (making it legal), if you are male, you are saying you will only date about 675,000 of the people in the US. While this is a large number, you have to realize that some of them will be older, and some younger. Also, you have to consider that many of them are probably already married or dating. Your numbers are dwindling.

If you are female, then that number drops to 6,750, which is also high due to married ones, etc. You are being very selective here.

So my final question is: how do you plan to meet them? Good luck.

(BTW, my post fails to account for the possibility that you might be male looking for a male, or female looking for a female. Let's just say that the available population dwindles even further in that case.)

The average American woman is 140 pounds. The average American male is about 180 pounds. So a 250 pound person weight maximum is well below average.

Your comment about the average person interested in a Segway being over 250 pounds is just a weak guess on your part and makes no sense. You honestly think the only use for a Segway is to be more lazy? Sheesh. I guess you just run everywhere.

And ADA lawsuits aren't gonna touch a private company's product, dumbass. Even bicycles have weight limits and the ADA isn't suing them.