Should I Worry about my BMI?

A lot of us have complicated histories with the BMI chart, and I have heard several stories from women who have struggled with body image based on their BMI categorization. I have done some research on the history of the BMI chart, and I have some issues with it:

Weight and body fat can be significant health factors, but BMI may not be the best way to measure health. Body Mass Index (BMI) is a metric that is a "measure of body fat based on height and weight” according to the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The NIH says that BMI measures body fat, but body composition is not considered in the BMI calculations. BMI calculations are based solely on height and weight, without taking body fat or muscle mass into account. Thus, muscular people with healthy lifestyles have the potential to be considered “obese” according to the BMI.

Furthermore, the BMI was created by a statistician and was never meant to measure individual health. The initial purpose of the BMI chart was to estimate population data. It was initially based on white Western Europeans in the 1830s… and probably should not be generalized to everyone else.

For me, the final nail in the BMI coffin comes from a revision that occurred in 1998. The chart was revised in 1998 by the NIH, changing the cutoff line between “overweight” and “normal weight” from 27.8 (men) and 27.3 (women) to 24.9. This was pretty substantial. A 5’8 woman was considered “healthy” at 180 pounds before this change but afterward needed to be 164 pounds to fit within the confines of the new chart. Overnight, millions of Americans who were previously considered to be of healthy weight were told they needed to lose several pounds. Many panel members who made this change had ties to weight loss companies such as Weight Watchers and pharmaceutical companies with weight loss drugs on the market. Essentially, the people making this shift had something to gain by telling Americans they needed to lose weight.

My takeaway is that anybody pursuing better health should focus on healthy behaviors, not BMI metrics. Health-promoting behaviors include physical activity, consumption of fruits and vegetables, and sleeping 7+ hours per night. Obsessing about fitting into a chart category is not on this list.