Illustrated BMI Categories

I was explaining to my boss that I am obese the other day and he refused to beleive me. Unfortunately most of the pictures in this archive are of women. They are pretty easy to fit into catagories. Overweight women are not unattractive. There are a few men. The guy who is just shy of normal looks almost malnourished. The overweight guys don't look overweight. Either guys hide fat better than women, or fat is way more dangerous on men 'causing the medical industry to set comparatively different standards.

[I think it's certain that guys don't seem as "overweight" as they may be. It's due to differences of frame, as well as styles of dress, and also largely social expectations and preferences. I myself am just back into the realm of merely overweight, rather than obese, now that I've dropped below 210 (201 this am, though that fluctuates +/- 4 or 5 pretty easily).

According to BMI the "Healthy" or "Normal" range for a 5'10" male is between 140 and 174. This is along the lines of my intuitive feeling, based on my target weight being 160-165 to look and feel best. I was between 130 and 140 from about age 15 to age 20, and only put on my "freshman 15" as a junior, and it was more like 25, but I think that was better. 140 is pretty waifish for me.

Anyway, the main thing this photoset shows is that while the general categories almost fit, the simple division of weight by height doesn't account for your frame... some people actually do look better slightly overweight, and for my personal take on it, the girls at the lower to middle end of the "overweight" spectrum are generally the most attractive to me. -k]

Illustrated BMI Categories - a photoset on Flickr