[Tomchu]

Unhealthy is right -- is that some kind of nasty infection on her feet?

[Dakar the Fourth]

Wow, I am not extra glad I didn't click to see the pic. Feet... *shudder*

[BlueSky]

Originally Posted by Chongo 

Back in the day she was hot. Would she considered fat today?

Today she would be considered skeletal.

[andi*pandi]

fyi, marilyn was a size 14. Not far off from this girl.

I will say the bikini was a bad idea, was it a requirement of competition? A one piece would have been better for her.

[ShortcutToMoncton]

Naw, she was considerably smaller than a 14, especially before she got a little bigger. Sizing was a lot different back in the day. My ex (fashion/modeling person) used to yammer on about some conspiracy on how they've increased the sizing charts to make women feel that they're fitting into smaller sizes.

greg

[brassplayersrock²]

[::maroma::]

OK, I came to the 2nd page of this thread and noticed this banner ad at the top:



Is this some sort of insensitive April Fools joke???1

[scaught]

Originally Posted by Person Man 

She's overweight, by BMI (hers is 25.3). That's just over the border between "normal" and overweight (the cutoff is 25).

Where did you calculate that BMI? I'm 6'2" and around 200 pounds. This site (Calculate your BMI - Standard BMI Calculator) just calculated me at 25.7. I'm overweight, too! In jeans with a 34" waist. Working out 4 days a week.

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by scaught 

Where did you calculate that BMI? I'm 6'2" and around 200 pounds. This site (Calculate your BMI - Standard BMI Calculator) just calculated me at 25.7. I'm overweight, too! In jeans with a 34" waist. Working out 4 days a week.

BMI is simply a ratio of height to weight. Its use to determine obesity applies to normal, relatively sedentary people. Athletes will show up with high BMIs much like unhealthy people will. I kind of doubt the chick in the OP has a lot of muscle weight, though.

[Laminar]

Originally Posted by scaught 

Where did you calculate that BMI? I'm 6'2" and around 200 pounds. This site (Calculate your BMI - Standard BMI Calculator) just calculated me at 25.7. I'm overweight, too! In jeans with a 34" waist. Working out 4 days a week.

I'm 6'5" and 180 pounds, with a 33-34 inch waist. I am not overweight.

Originally Posted by Tomchu 

Unhealthy is right -- is that some kind of nasty infection on her feet?

No, just a photo with harsh lighting.

Anyway, she's a bit chubby, but I wouldn't say unhealthy.

[Person Man]

Originally Posted by scaught 

Where did you calculate that BMI? I'm 6'2" and around 200 pounds. This site (Calculate your BMI - Standard BMI Calculator) just calculated me at 25.7. I'm overweight, too! In jeans with a 34" waist. Working out 4 days a week.

I calculated that BMI with the same tool I use to calculate the BMIs of all my patients at the clinic where I work. The article states that she is 5'10" and weighs 12 stone 8 lbs, which equals (12 x 14 lbs) + 8 lbs = 176 lbs.

The BMI I came up with is probably way more meaningful for her than it is for you because she is probably a lot more sedentary than you are. When you take that into account, she is not as bad as many people here are making her out to be. Strictly speaking, you are overweight by the numbers, but BMI is just one piece out of many that we use to describe and predict a person's health.

Granted, the article does say that she does try to stay physically active, and if what the article describes her as doing workout-wise is true, it's a heck of a lot more than what some of my non-overweight patients (by BMI) are doing.

[mindwaves]

I can tell you that she needs to do a lot more when she is doing physical activities.

[Person Man]

Originally Posted by mindwaves 

I can tell you that she needs to do a lot more when she is doing physical activities.

What are you basing this on?

According to the article, she says she "eats well, I exercise regularly – I jog, swim, and work out with weights."

You can't know for sure what she means by that, and a lot of it is vague and she doesn't say how much she does any of those activities, and "eating well" can have any of hundreds of meanings depending on how you look at it.

Most of my patients who are in the same physical shape she is in don't do ANY of those activities at all.

My point is you can't assume anything about someone based simply on how they look.

I have a 300 pound 20-something year old woman in my practice who eats a healthy, balanced diet (as verified by food logs), exercises an hour every day, takes no medication at all, last blood pressure was 116/76, has great cholesterol levels (her LDL is 78, HDL is 65), and blood sugars have all been normal.

I have another 300 pound 20-something year old woman in my practice who is sedentary, diabetic, has high blood pressure and high cholesterol.

Most people would assume just from looking at them that BOTH of them are lazy and unhealthy, based solely on weight alone.

To counter that, I can find two people who look like they are in great physical shape, except that one really is, and the other is really in poor health.

[smacintush]

First of all, BMI is useless crap. BSI is more like it. I really don't understand why something so overly simplistic and flawed is given so much usage. Are we really this desperate to reduce a persons condition to a number?

Second, more and more studies are showing that it's not how large you are, it's your diet and activity level that matters. You can be very overweight and even obese and still be healthy and fit. In fact, a skinny person that eats crap and is sedentary is MORE likely to have health problems than a heavier person since they don't have the fat or the muscle "back up" that their bodies may need in times of sickness and/or stress.

Third, some of you are FULL OF ****. Marilyn Monroe was heavier than most any female sex symbol these days, she slept around and she had emotional and substance abuse problems. If she were famous right now you'd be giving her the same treatment you give Britney.

Fourth, As far as I'm concerned, I don't think she is particularly attractive but she isn't "too" fat.

Fifth, it never ceases to amaze me how juvenile, judgmental and mean some of you can be.

[Person Man]

Originally Posted by smacintush 

First of all, BMI is useless crap. BSI is more like it. I really don't understand why something so overly simplistic and flawed is given so much usage. Are we really this desperate to reduce a persons condition to a number?

Yes. A lot of the people in this thread are.

But apparently you missed the part where I said that BMI is just ONE piece of data among MANY that doctors use to assess you. If someone told me that a person had a BMI of 32 and asked me if they were obese, I'd tell them I'd need more information. LOTS more.

Second, more and more studies are showing that it's not how large you are, it's your diet and activity level that matters. You can be very overweight and even obese and still be healthy and fit. In fact, a skinny person that eats crap and is sedentary is MORE likely to have health problems than a heavier person since they don't have the fat or the muscle "back up" that their bodies may need in times of sickness and/or stress.

Third, some of you are FULL OF ****. Marilyn Monroe was heavier than most any female sex symbol these days, she slept around and she had emotional and substance abuse problems. If she were famous right now you'd be giving her the same treatment you give Britney.

The people, they are so shallow.

Fourth, As far as I'm concerned, I don't think she is particularly attractive but she isn't "too" fat.

Exactly my point in bringing up her BMI. 25.3 is barely over the "overweight" mark, and certainly not "obese," in the medical sense. And I'd say she's of average attractiveness. Nothing particularly striking.

Fifth, it never ceases to amaze me how juvenile, judgmental and mean some of you can be.

What??? This is teh 'NN Lounge. You have to be juvenile, judgmental and mean to be popular in here. Doesn't surprise me in the least. Now what WOULD amaze me is if people in here would actually be adult, nonjudgmental and kind.

[Laminar]

Bingo.

[smacintush]

Originally Posted by Person Man 

Yes. A lot of the people in this thread are.

But apparently you missed the part where I said that BMI is just ONE piece of data among MANY that doctors use to assess you. If someone told me that a person had a BMI of 32 and asked me if they were obese, I'd tell them I'd need more information. LOTS more.

Well, with the huge variety of body types, fitness levels and fat levels, what's the real value in creating a "Body Mass Index"? It seems to me that it is way too limited in what it actually tells you about a person to be very valuable.

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by smacintush 

Fifth, it never ceases to amaze me how juvenile, judgmental and mean some of you can be.

I don't think that's fair. Judging somebody who has put herself up for judgment in a contest doesn't necessarily mean you're a judgmental person. That's like accusing someone of being violent and cold-hearted because he ruthlessly knocks people to the ground when he's playing football. I don't walk around asking people to play guitar for me and criticizing them when they suck, but if somebody sends me his CD and asks me to review it, I'm not going to write polite, empty compliments just so somebody on the Web doesn't lambaste me for being judgmental.

I'm not saying she's a horrible person or that she deserves to die lonely and sad, nor is this some innocent girl I decided to comment on just because I'm a jerk who does that to people. I just think she has some traits that aren't well-suited to a beauty pageant contestant, which is a public role in which she's put herself up for comment.

[Person Man]

Originally Posted by smacintush 

Well, with the huge variety of body types, fitness levels and fat levels, what's the real value in creating a "Body Mass Index"? It seems to me that it is way too limited in what it actually tells you about a person to be very valuable.

It's no more limited than what someone's weight actually tells you. By itself it's pretty meaningless. But put it with something else and it becomes more useful.

Its value is more in standardizing height/weight when doing statistical analysis on data to look for trends. There are always going to be outliers, but when your sample size is big enough then you have areas where most people fall.

For example, suppose a study says that "On average, people with a BMI of 30 are more unhealthy than people with a BMI of 20." Sift through the data and you can find instances where the statement is untrue.

Besides, BMI normalizes things a bit and makes statistical analysis easier. Can you imagine saying something like, "On average, people who are 5'0" and 154 lbs, 5'1" and 159 lbs... and so on?"

When 95% of the people I see fall within two standard deviations of the mean, the BMI is quite useful in predicting things. But you always have to be aware of the 2.5% on either side of the curve.

So, under the right circumstances, BMI can be useful. It is a tool. And like any tool, it can be used properly or misused.

[smacintush]

Originally Posted by Chuckit 

I don't think that's fair. Judging somebody who has put herself up for judgment in a contest doesn't necessarily mean you're a judgmental person. That's like accusing someone of being violent and cold-hearted because he ruthlessly knocks people to the ground when he's playing football. I don't walk around asking people to play guitar for me and criticizing them when they suck, but if somebody sends me his CD and asks me to review it, I'm not going to write polite, empty compliments just so somebody on the Web doesn't lambaste me for being judgmental.

I'm not saying she's a horrible person or that she deserves to die lonely and sad, nor is this some innocent girl I decided to comment on just because I'm a jerk who does that to people. I just think she has some traits that aren't well-suited to a beauty pageant contestant, which is a public role in which she's put herself up for comment.

There's a big difference between saying that she is too overweight for a beauty pageant and throwing around childish, unfunny fat jokes.

[Laminar]

Originally Posted by smacintush 

childish, unfunny

Totally subjective.

and wrong

[Gankdawg]

IMHO:

Miss England try-out is fat.

Marilyn Monroe was fat.

Thank god Railhead saved this thread a ways back.

[jojo gunne]

At least she has her teeth.

[aristotles]

Person Man, why don't you just admit that BMI has been proven in this thread to be a virtually useless "tool" for determining fitness level? It does more harm than good. The BMI may have been a somewhat useful tool when most people in the past used to live relatively sedentary lives but with the increased popularity of gyms and exercise equipment combined with a more ethnically diverse society, it has outlived its usefulness.

[Oisín]

Originally Posted by aristotles 

Person Man, why don't you just admit that BMI has been proven in this thread to be a virtually useless "tool" for determining fitness level? It does more harm than good. The BMI may have been a somewhat useful tool when most people in the past used to live relatively sedentary lives but with the increased popularity of gyms and exercise equipment combined with a more ethnically diverse society, it has outlived its usefulness.

“Outlived its usefulness”?

BMI is exactly as useful, or not useful, as it always was. Nothing has changed in that department. Person Man’s description is quite a good one. This thread has shown absolutely nothing about whether BMI is a useful tool or not. The thread deals with two people, which is not how BMIs are meant to be used at all.

[Person Man]

Originally Posted by aristotles 

Person Man, why don't you just admit that BMI has been proven in this thread to be a virtually useless "tool" for determining fitness level? It does more harm than good.

BMI is not meant to "determine fitness level."

The BMI may have been a somewhat useful tool when most people in the past used to live relatively sedentary lives

"...when most people in the past used to live relatively sedentary lives?"

"USED TO"??????????

The majority of my patients still fall within two standard deviations of the mean on the BMI scale, which makes it fine for the purposes for which I use it.

And I really don't use it all that much. Nor do I attach as much importance to it as much as you and others in this thread seem to think I do.

[ghporter]

The young lady who's trying out for Miss England is indeed unhealthy. Note the shape of her arms and thighs-that's not just extra fat, it's worse than that: flab. Marilyn Monroe (a size 12 or 14 by today's standards) did NOT have that sort of flab, even though she did have quite round hips. She jiggled in a much more healthy manner (in spite of all her other problems).

BMI is indeed obsolescent. It's a gross measurement (sorry for the pun) and doesn't take into account factors like bone structure and fat/lean proportions. Supposedly, a person of my height (6'2") should "ideally" weigh about 198 pounds. If I did that, I'd look like a concentration camp survivor. I know this because I DID weigh 196 at age 19 when I graduated from Basic Training (and at only about 6' at the time), and I did look sick. My shoulders and hips are wide , and I have a large rib cage, so have more framework to support and move, thus I need to weigh more than the "ideal" just to have any muscles to move around with. ANY metric that depends ONLY on height and weight is crude at best; there are way too many factors involved in "healthy weight" versus "unhealthy weight" for a simple 2-dimensional measure to be anything more than just a coarse guideline.

[ShortcutToMoncton]

Originally Posted by ghporter 

BMI is indeed obsolescent. It's a gross measurement (sorry for the pun) and doesn't take into account factors like bone structure and fat/lean proportions. Supposedly, a person of my height (6'2") should "ideally" weigh about 198 pounds. If I did that, I'd look like a concentration camp survivor. I know this because I DID weigh 196 at age 19 when I graduated from Basic Training (and at only about 6' at the time), and I did look sick. My shoulders and hips are wide , and I have a large rib cage, so have more framework to support and move, thus I need to weigh more than the "ideal" just to have any muscles to move around with. ANY metric that depends ONLY on height and weight is crude at best; there are way too many factors involved in "healthy weight" versus "unhealthy weight" for a simple 2-dimensional measure to be anything more than just a coarse guideline.

This is the most complicated way of saying "I'm fat" I've ever seen....

[Oisín]

The BMI may have been a somewhat useful tool when most people in the past used to live relatively sedentary lives

Missed this one first time around, somehow.

You do realise that there has never in recorded history been a time when the average person leads as sedentary a life as right now, right?

[RAILhead]

Originally Posted by ghporter 

The young lady who's trying out for Miss England is indeed unhealthy. Note the shape of her arms and thighs-that's not just extra fat, it's worse than that: flab. Marilyn Monroe (a size 12 or 14 by today's standards) did NOT have that sort of flab, even though she did have quite round hips. She jiggled in a much more healthy manner (in spite of all her other problems).

BMI is indeed obsolescent. It's a gross measurement (sorry for the pun) and doesn't take into account factors like bone structure and fat/lean proportions. Supposedly, a person of my height (6'2") should "ideally" weigh about 198 pounds. If I did that, I'd look like a concentration camp survivor. I know this because I DID weigh 196 at age 19 when I graduated from Basic Training (and at only about 6' at the time), and I did look sick. My shoulders and hips are wide , and I have a large rib cage, so have more framework to support and move, thus I need to weigh more than the "ideal" just to have any muscles to move around with. ANY metric that depends ONLY on height and weight is crude at best; there are way too many factors involved in "healthy weight" versus "unhealthy weight" for a simple 2-dimensional measure to be anything more than just a coarse guideline.

Same here. I'm 6'4" and I'm supposed to weight 200 pounds? Yeah, and I'd look like Kate Moss.

[Person Man]

Originally Posted by ghporter 

BMI is indeed obsolescent.

<snip>

ANY metric that depends ONLY on height and weight is crude at best; there are way too many factors involved in "healthy weight" versus "unhealthy weight" for a simple 2-dimensional measure to be anything more than just a coarse guideline.

Try telling that to the insurance companies and trial lawyers.

Many of the clinical guidelines and standards of care that we are held to are based on the patient's BMI, whether it is useful or not.

Want to have any sort of weight loss surgery paid for by your insurance company? Your BMI has to be greater than or equal to 40.0 (35.0 if you have a life threatening health condition and would die "soon" without quick, drastic weight loss).

Diabetic? The "standard of care" says that doctors should be calculating BMI's along with recording height and weight and other vital signs at every visit. Do I calculate it every time? Yes. Do I ever do anything with it? Never. You can bet, though, if I get sued for something and if I forget to write that number down one time out of twenty, the plaintiff's lawyer will ignore the 19 times I actually did it and focus on the one time I forgot to do it. (If it's not documented, it was never done. Lawsuits have been won based on that... a smoker got cancer and successfully sued his doctor because on ONE occasion the doctor never documented that he had talked to the patient about quitting smoking... NEVER MIND THE FACT THAT THE DOCTOR HAD DOCUMENTED IT AT EVERY OTHER VISIT!)

That said, there is one thing I use BMI for. I use it to give people a range of "healthy weight" for weight loss purposes. The "standard formula" for answering the question "what is my ideal weight?" is 100 lbs for the first 5 feet, and 5 additional pounds for each additional inch for women, and 6 additional pounds for each additional inch for men.

In Maury's case, at 6'4" the formula would say he should weigh 196 lbs, which is indeed stick thin. The BMI would be 23.9, which isn't too bad, but the BMI breaks down at extremes of height as well. A weight of 205 at 6'4" would be considered "overweight" by BMI alone. But most of my patients are between 5'0" and 5'10", so a woman who was 5'2" would have an ideal weight of 110 lbs. (BMI of 20.1) Most women would laugh at that the same way Maury would, so I give them the top and bottom range (BMI 18.0 to 24.9), which for a 5'2" person gives 99 to 136 lbs.

The 130 lbs is more "realistic" for most people. If someone came to me for weight loss advice and I ever gave them a target weight above ideal body weight that was also above "overweight" by BMI and something bad happened to them and they sued me, you can bet the lawyer would be asking "Doctor, WHY did you give this person a target weight that would still be considered overweight?" And no, in a trial situation, a statement like "because the formula gives results that are unrealistic for most people" definitely won't fly. "If that's the case, why does the standard of care dictate that formula be used instead of something else?"

This whole thing makes me wish I'd never brought up the damn BMI in the first place. I hardly ever use it in clinical practice except where I'm forced to.

I'm done with this topic. Nobody here is ever satisfied until they take the tiniest thing someone says and pick it apart ad nauseam because they can't find anything of substance to debate.

[Doofy]

Originally Posted by Person Man 

Nobody here is ever satisfied until they take the tiniest thing someone says and pick it apart ad nauseam because they can't find anything of substance to debate.

Funny that. I gave everyone a debate topic right there in the OP, but nobody's appeared to bother with it.

[Weyland-Yutani]

Originally Posted by Doofy 

Funny that. I gave everyone a debate topic right there in the OP, but nobody's appeared to bother with it.

I reckon it was just the timing. Had you posted it today or the day before yesterday or just about any day except april 1st

[voodoo]

Originally Posted by Dakar the Fourth 

Heh, someone needs to make a voodoo April Fools account. Might be the only case in which the original account gets banned before the dupe.

Wait, you aren't an April Fools account? A likely story.

[Dakar the Fourth]

Burn?

[Person Man]

Originally Posted by Doofy 

Funny that. I gave everyone a debate topic right there in the OP, but nobody's appeared to bother with it.

Well, I tried to weigh in (pun intended) on the subject, but instead of people getting my point (that by medical standards she's not extremely overweight), they seized on a tiny part of my argument and started attacking it as irrelevant.

[Horsepoo!!!]

That is HAWT! I'd hit her...and then bounce back.

[brassplayersrock²]

or be sucked in

[Doofy]

Originally Posted by Person Man 

Well, I tried to weigh in (pun intended) on the subject, but instead of people getting my point (that by medical standards she's not extremely overweight), they seized on a tiny part of my argument and started attacking it as irrelevant.

Such is life here at the NN.
:shrug:

[::maroma::]

Originally Posted by Doofy 

Such is life here at the NN.
:shrug:

I wouldn't give NN'ers that much credit. Its a common practice all over the Internet.

[Person Man]

Originally Posted by ::maroma:: 

I wouldn't give NN'ers that much credit. Its a common practice all over the Internet.

Yup. I won't post the picture here, but it is true. Arguing on the internet is like running in the Special Olympics. Even if you win, you're still retarded.

[brassplayersrock²]

[Weyland-Yutani]

Originally Posted by Person Man 

Yup. I won't post the picture here, but it is true. Arguing on the internet is like running in the Special Olympics. Even if you win, you're still retarded.

We're all special

I don't think one can win an argument on the internet. It's just a question when one stops replying to a given thread. The last responder doesn't 'win' the debate, he just has the last post - for what that's worth.

In fact arguments are rarely won, even in the 'real world'. Political debates come to mind, where the partakers leave the debate with exactly the same opinion as when they entered it.

As for this topic: that girl has a really pretty face but she is too fat for me. I like nice hips and boobs, but just as women can be too scrawny they can be too fat.

Beauty is in they eyes of the beholder. However beauty-pageants in my opinion are a lousy way to find beauty. Even superficial beauty.

[Laminar]

Originally Posted by ghporter 

Supposedly, a person of my height (6'2") should "ideally" weigh about 198 pounds. If I did that, I'd look like a concentration camp survivor.

Originally Posted by RAILhead 

Same here. I'm 6'4" and I'm supposed to weight 200 pounds? Yeah, and I'd look like Kate Moss.

So you're saying at 6'5" and 185 pounds I'm a bit...light?

[sek929]

You're skinny like me, but your joints will thank you for it later in life.

[Laminar]

Well, when I stand up from sitting down, my knees sound like a bowl of Rice Krispies. That's good, right?

[sek929]

Having beaten my body up for a decade building houses I can only ask what the hell you did you screw your knees up so bad??

[::maroma::]

Originally Posted by Laminar 

So I notice the ball is on the ground there. You missed, didn't you?

[Laminar]

Originally Posted by sek929 

Having beaten my body up for a decade building houses I can only ask what the hell you did you screw your knees up so bad??

Great genes.

Originally Posted by ::maroma:: 

So I notice the ball is on the ground there. You missed, didn't you?

I'm guessing that's from the game next to us because I never EVER miss.