Illustrated BMI categories on Flickr
Posted by Lance Gravlee on October 3rd, 2007 |
Via the Well blog at the New York Times, I just learned about the Illustrated BMI Categories Project on Flickr. As of today, the Flickr photoset includes photographs of 80 women, along with their height, weight, and BMI category, based on CDC guidelines (I haven’t verified the BMI calculations). Do the CDC categories fit your idea of who is overweight or obese? And what do you make of the fact that only women are featured in the photos?
Be sure to check out the comments on the original post at the Well blog, too. They give you a good sense of how people react to controversy over the meaning of BMI.
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6 Responses
I was a little disappointed by the pictures. I thought that the pictures would be more uniform, instead of home photos that were sent in. The different photos make it hard to tell if the person “looks” like the BMI description. But after looking at all of the photos and reading the BMIs, I feel that BMI is very inaccurate. Many of those people looked healthy and normal, but were classified as “overweight.” The BMI made the muscular people overweight or obese. There were two bodybuilder looking men that were classified as “obese.” Flickr, as least to me, seems to be making fun of the BMI categories. They allowed people to send in pictures of themselves doing everything from posing half-naked to running triathlons. It also made light of BMI when titling each of the photos. For example, there was a photo of a girl who would fluctuate between underweight and normal depending on what she had for breakfast. This shows that BMI is so dependent on weight, that other factors like body composition are not taken into account. In my opinion, I think that BMI is an old technique that needs to be replaced in order to accurately measure underweight, normal, overweight, obese, and morbidly obese.
I think it really was trying to point out the absurdity of the “BMI” as an accurate form of measurement. Truly, the formula isn’t the problem: the categories are. While nothing more than a superficial measure to begin with, it seems the categories are wildly absurd. So you’re saying 1 more pound, and my life expectancy no longer includes my adult-diaper wearing years? Really?
Actually, I don’t know my BMI at the moment. I’ve decided to forego potential doom and shame. Still…
Fortunately, these days, it seems less people consider BMI an appropriate measure of…wait what exactly DOES it measure? Health? No. Body Fat? Hmm…no. How much we should be ashamed with our own bodies? …That sounds about right.
It seemed to me that the biggest discrepancies between my perception and BMI categories occurred between the levels of underweight, overweight, and normal. It is clearly a grey area, that obviously has given those who developed the categories a run for their money, as they’ve seen fit to change the categories over the years.
Wait, what? Change the categories? What data and experimentation precipitated this change? I’m sure they were quite thorough, I mean, hasn’t BMI helped in the whole “Osama loves Obesity” campaign that’s going on? I mean, it must be very accurate if it’s spurred a whole new generation of body-conscious women/2 men/and a cat?
I think it’s quite clear that the concept of “BMI” hasn’t won me over quite yet. You know what always wins me over, though? Chocolate. Lots and lots of chocolate.
I feel like BMI should be just a guide not an end all be all standard by which everyone should go by. The problem with BMI is that it categorizes people without taking into account factors such as muscle to fat ratio. Some of these women on the website whom I would consider to be skinny or even normal were deemed overweight and or even obese, which is absolutely absurd. Whether someone is too fat or too skinny should be a discussion between you and your doctor based on facts such as what you eat, do you exercise, what is your cholesterol, blood pressure and your genetics and family history and not based of off some number that categorizes everyone in the world into one group(BMI). BMI I feel is not a good way to make health and diet decisions. It should be thrown out and a new better system should be put in its place.
I agree with the other comments thus far. I looked through all the photos a couple days ago and before I looked at the BMI, I said to myself what I thought the people would be classified as. For the underweight and severely obese people, I got it right. The normal, overweight, and slightly obese people I got it wrong almost every time. If a classification system can only identify the extremes how useful is it? The fact that it is mostly women was also troubling but not surprising. Women are much more affected by weight messages than men. The few men that were on there were mostly in good shape (but classified as obese). I think that BMI has become this fun thing to try out and see what America thinks you are, much like what we did in class. I feel that it is extremely outdated and ha no medical use any longer.
I agree that BMI is arbitrary and not very medically relevant. I also think it’s a sad state of affairs that so many people hold up BMI as a standard of measure for obesity without realizing how arbitary or even silly it is in some cases. Someone posted a photo of their cat with its BMI. That was, to me, a good way to drive home the idea about the absurdity of relying on BMI.
I really think the American obsession with weight has become a self-destructive behavior for far too many people. Our society’s emphasis on the ideal (yet often unattainable) body type only causes anguish and feelings of worthlessness or shame. There has got to be a more effective, accurate way to measure health in relation to weight and body fat.
I think that it was a really interesting idea to put the BMI in perspective using photos people submitted. There should have been more pictures with guys in them, but my guess would be that not many guys read the article or submitted them.
I think what’s more important than having uniform photographs to show BMI was showing the confidence people with “over weight” and “obese” body types have. Normally we assume people who are “unhealthy” are ashamed of their bodies, but here we can see how happy and proud they are and how foolish the BMI is for classifying some as obese or overweight when they look quite healthy to me.
My favorite have to be Kate (photo) and the cat. I like Kate because I’ve been trying to do that pose in yoga for weeks and the cat because he’s cute and is a good tool to point out the craziness of BMI. Also if you think he’s bad I can’t imagine what the BMI of my cat Chunky Monkey would be. Photo