Body Mass Index or more commonly known as BMI is a valve based on a person’s height and weight which somehow decides your overall health giving your estimated risk for certain diseases such as heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, certain cancers, and many more. BMI was first created in the 1830s by a Belgian astronomer, mathematician, statistician and sociologist named Lambert Adolphe Jacques Quetelet. Since its creation the BMI has been implemented everywhere from hospitals to public schools. This formula created by some one who knew nothing about the human body is now widely accepted in the medical community and taught everywhere regardless of the numerous studies proving its ineffective and inaccurate.
The undeniable proof we choose to ignore when using BMI is that the creator, Quetelet Lambert stated that his formula was “not meant for medical use”, and his reason for this formula had nothing to do with obesity. As he was a statistician this formula was meant for an overall population average and not meant for individual use.
This formula has multiple other issues as a result of not being for medical or individual use with one of the main ones being it does not account for muscle, muscle weighs more than fat which results in someone who is considered extremely strong and fit would have the same BMI as an obese person. BMI is so widely accepted that a doctor who clearly sees their patient is all muscle with no fat will tell their patient they’re overweight and need to lose weight because of their BMI. Another issue would be is it doesn’t account for nutrition, exercise, mental health, etc. As a person who has a perfect BMI could be far less healthy than someone with a higher BMI as they could just have a fast metabolism yet eat far worse foods and get less exercise than the higher BMI individual.
Sadly this system causes more harm than just misinforming; it causes some individuals to take drastic measures to get in that perfect BMI range. From being misinformed and taught a certain range means you’re healthy this makes many individuals who strive to be healthy and may even be healthier than the average person to starve themselves or binge eat to be in that “healthy” range. In middle school I was a little overweight which this test did confirm, yet a few years later in high school I was taller and weighed more but it was all muscle yet I was considered more obese than I previous was even though I was one of the fittest kids in my class. Resulting from this misinformation and obnoxious system I almost failed the class… yes I ALMOST FAILED AS WE GOT GRADED BASED ON OUR BMI IN PE (Physical Education).
We like this system because it’s simple and easy enough to do from home making it widely accessible. But a system this simple is filled with problems as it is inaccurate for anyone who’s not the average person. While it’s also not being used for its intended purpose, it makes no sense, it’s physiologically wrong, and this oversimplification encourages laziness and makes overall health seem simpler than it actually is.
https://www.livescience.com/39097-bmi-not-accurate-health-measure.html
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/255712#The-BMI-formula
What I Found Out 