Originally Posted by koffee brown
BMI is a crock. It's supposed to be a standard to measure how fit you are, but the problem is, the fitter you are, the more it's off by, which is insane.
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The intent behind BMI is to give some rough idea of whether or not someone is at an approximately proper weight for their height and sex. For this to work in the absence of more elaborate measurements, it simply must exclude a very small population of people with low body fat percentage and a lot of muscle. Furthermore, people for whom BMI is not valid probably already know this and don't need to asses whether or not they are overweight.
Since not everyone has access to skin fold tests and tanks of water with scales-- what other basis can one use besides height and weight?
I see your point about insurance companies inproperly using BMI, who does that, BTW?