An American's image of what a body should look like is ballooning out of control. Frequently, when I tell patients what their 'ideal' body weight would be they look at me like I have a green face. "No way! I will be skin and bones if I weigh that!" is usually their response.
With ever enlarging bodies and ever increasing feelings of needing to be thinner for women (or fitter for men), clothing designers have also modified their sizing charts. They have more sizes and have inflated the sizing so that women think they are smaller then they are. Today's size 2 would have been a size 6 forty years ago, and if you were a size 2 you were so sick and emaciated it was saddening.
So how do you know what size you should be? There a couple of equations we use in the health care setting to give us a round about figure.
Women: 100 pounds + 5 pounds x # of inches over 5' you are
Men: 106 pounds + 6 pounds x # of inches over 5' you are
example:
5'6" W: 100 + 5x6 = 130 pounds
6' M: 106 + 6x12 = 178 pounds
The BMI can be slightly more accurate because if your BMI falls between 18.5 and 24.9 then you are considered to be a 'healthy' weight. So it gives more of a range for a healthy weight. The only problem with BMI is that it does not account for muscle mass on men, which, on some, can be a major percent of his body weight. Thus, a very fit and trim male can have a BMI which indicates that he is overweight when in fact his body fat percent might only be 6 or 8 percent.
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