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0 pointsble3y ago0 comments

> why not use that one?

Taking any of the more accurate measurements of body composition requires effort, unlike BMI. It's easy and lazy and not yet acknowledged as an ineffective practice so doctors do it. It's also not always wrong, just because BMI and obesity do correlate.

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PuppyTailWags3y ago

My understanding is the argument is not whether to use someone's fatness as a measure of health if there's a much better, specific metric besides being fat (ie. resting insulin levels) to prescribe exercise and diet over.

I don't think it'll reduce stigma or whatever of fat people, but I do agree that if someone is fat but their insulin is normal maybe a doctor can pay attention to something else like if they came in for an allergy test or something they may not need the diet/exercise spiel. Similarly if someone's thin but their insulin is crazy its time to talk diet/exercise.

vorpalhex3y ago

There is a rare, rare, rare chance you can some weird diseases that mess up insulin sensitivity, so you can be skinny and have issues. Those are rare and not solved by diet and exercise.

Otherwise if your insulin is high, you need to diet and exercise. Measuring blood insulin is a lab procedure - you go to a collection lab, you get jabbed, they mail it for testing.

Measuring BMI requires stepping on a scale and knowing how tall you are.

PuppyTailWags3y ago

> Measuring BMI requires stepping on a scale and knowing how tall you are.

There are contradicting posts in this very thread that say high BMI and obesity aren't necessarily the same thing, because apparently you can be tall and be only mildly into lifting and suddenly you have a high BMI. If that's the case [I'm not a lifter] then it makes total sense to me to track resting blood glucose, not obesity, because it's simply the more accurate measurement.

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PuppyTailWags3y ago

vorpalhex3y ago

There is a rare, rare, rare chance you can some weird diseases that mess up insulin sensitivity, so you can be skinny and have issues. Those are rare and not solved by diet and exercise.

Otherwise if your insulin is high, you need to diet and exercise. Measuring blood insulin is a lab procedure - you go to a collection lab, you get jabbed, they mail it for testing.

Measuring BMI requires stepping on a scale and knowing how tall you are.

PuppyTailWags3y ago

> Measuring BMI requires stepping on a scale and knowing how tall you are.

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