> Conclusions and Relevance
> Grade 1 obesity overall was not associated with higher mortality, and overweight was associated with significantly lower all-cause mortality.
BMI is a vague measure in the first place, and the ranges are pretty arbitrary, but even accounting for that only the “obesity” range is related to health issues.
[0] https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/1555137
Height isn't though.
> Most 6'2 men are 8" shorter when sitting beside me
I know people don't have perfectly proportional limbs and body parts across the population but a 6'2" man is a 6'2" man no matter what length of torso they sit next to. And 1Kg of wool weighs just as much as 1Kg of iron.
I agree that BMI is very vague. But at 6'2" (~1.88m) being under 100Kg can't be "literally unhealthy" unless you're a special case like a body builder. There's no scientific basis for the statement and no doctor will ever say such a thing. Definitely no doctor will diagnose someone with "long torso" that can justify that weight unless it's a severe deformity. Perpetuating such nonsense is bad because it encourages some people to justify bad eating habits with nonsense pseudo-science.
To illustrate what kind of weight we're talking about, Arnold Schwarzenegger was 6'2" and 107Kg [0] in competitions.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnold_Schwarzenegger#Bodybuil...
Healthiness isn't just a height and weight though, and there is so many other things going on.
People in these discussion have an image of a "standard" body type, with an "average" type of life, but realistically nobody actually fits that average. From my point of view I, I'm not even sure where the parent poster lives, I assume they are male, but have no idea of their ethnicity, nor age, nor what their life looks like. Depending on their exact circumstances, losing more than 10% of the body weight could have more detrimental effects than benefits (it could be "literally unhealthy")
> Arnold Schwarzenegger was 6'2" and 107Kg [0] in competitions.
Imagine he loses some muscle and gets 10kg of fat here and there. That would put him at probably 20% body fat perhaps ? He'd look sloppy as hell, but I don't think it would be a morbid body in medical terms.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnold_Schwarzenegger#Bodybuil...
2 is used commonly but only because it used to be easier to compute.
Also, for people with large muscle mass, bmi will show overweight or obese for people that have normal (or even low) fat mass.
I am 188cm, and I am firmly in overweight part of the scale according to general BMI graphs you can find anywhere. But we talk about a person who has cca 8% body fat according to various measurements taken (which is normal amount for sporty folks, and I am relatively extremely active).
The thing is, I have very wide chest and shoulders far apart, also I think my overall torso length is above average but never checked that. That chest part is really bone/ribcage structure, not tons of muscles on top of that.
I am not complaining, putting on a bit of muscles and straightening my stance had make me look like second Arnold when wearing t-shirt, at least for chest part.
In the same vein, my legs are relatively thin (both calves and thighs), so my projected contour is far from some average male guy. BMI categories never worked on me.