Comment by ywvcbk
5 hours ago
To be fair BMI is based on Belgians from the 1850s with all the implications it has. Modern people are much taller (+15 cm for males) and eat a lot more protein.
So the line between normal and overweight is somewhat blurry. e.g. someone who is 6'3" and weighs 200 pounds is overweight. Which might or might not be the case (but you certainly don’t need to a body builder or invest a lot of time to maintain at least reasonably healthy 18-20% body fat ratio).
>To be fair BMI is based on Belgians from the 1850s with all the implications it has.
It's a pretty straightforward formula, and even though the cutoffs might be arbitrary, there's undoubtedly a u shaped mortality curve centered somewhere around 20-25. At a population level I don't think any of that is a relevant factor. No one thinks that your risk of death hinges on crossing an arbitrary line, but being fatter definitely isn't good for your health.
But the question here is whether you can compare the BMI curves of two countries and come to any conclusions, and the answer is pretty solidly "no".
Bone density, muscle mass, torso height relative to leg height—none of these things are factored into BMI and all of these vary wildly depending on genes.