I never watch this show and now I know why. I turned on Dr. Oz because the commercial showed this woman who lost "an amazing amount of weight" on her own so I wanted to see what she did. And she would say "I couldn't live like that" .

She weighed 180 with a BMI of 31 and he called her obese! I'm pretty sure that is overweight on the BMI scale. 180 for me was not that long ago ...actually ...it was 40 pounds ago. He was saying things like "she let her weight get out of control" and "her weight was stopping her from doing things".

I see people fighting everyday to get to 180. Heck, I think we all **** ourselves the day the scale said 199 ...and we have doctor's making these comments.

I remember as I was still losing ...the nurse in my PCP's office said "oh so you lost 3 pounds since your last visit" ...(I was still heavy then) and I said "but I've lost 70 so far, I had gastric bypass". Her comment to me was snippy like I should of lost more ...and how dare I be so heavy.

Yes, the lady looked great at 120 pounds but she didn't look bad at 180 either.

ARGH!

I did'nt see the show but, I know exactly what you mean.  I've had doctors telling me to lose weight since I was in middle school.  I'm short for a guy at 5ft 5in tall.  In highschool I weighed 150lbs and my mom was always trying to get me on a diet and our family doctor would always lecture me about my "weight problelm".  I was 150 for god sake.  I look back at pictures from when I was 18 and it puzzles my mind that those around me were so concerned, I look great and healthy....I wish I had known that then but, instead, I believed what I heard from those around me. 

BMI of 30+ is obese :-(

Under 30 is overweight

I have to get to 270 to be "over weight" and 225 to be "Normal"

Seriously... at 6'8" normal is 225???   I don't see how this is humanly possible.

At 270 I had a 38 waist and people kept saying I looked sick.    I can't imagine what I would look like at 225

These numbers are pure bull**** IMHO

Hey Tony,

I think the same thing. Normal for me is less than 170 lbs. The range is 130 to 170 for normal/healthy weight. I'm sorry but this just might be the fat guy in me talking but there is nothing normal about a 130 lbs 5'10" guy running around... I always laugh when I see these "normal" weight people going berserk over 10 lbs. My goal is 225 for two reasons:

1. That is the number I psychologically think I'll be able to reach.
2. I want to know what my body is going to look like and again in my head I think 225 will be a good weight to judge that.

I'm well aware 225 is still obese and if things are going well I'll work on dropping myself out of the obese range which means losing 25 more pounds.

You're 6'8"?? I'm officially in love.

I know, right, Jackie? 6'8"?? yum yum!
Jeni

UGH! I like Dr. Oz from reading what he writes in Reader's Digest. I am seriously rethinking that. I would LOVE to be at 180.

I will officially dance the Irish friggin' jig when I see 180 on the scale again!!

I think that is so ridiculous, you think a highly educator person such as a doctor would never rely on such an minor piece of evidence. BMI is just weight/height it doesn't take anything else into account. That's like giving someone a math test, they fail and you say- oh guess your a total moron. Come on- health should be an overall assessment and a DOCTOR should know that. Oz...puleeze!

It was really strange to me how much stress the doctor's put on BMI BEFORE the surgery, and how little my team seems to care about it after.

I'm 6'2" and built very  broadly.  My surgeons have set a weight RANGE as a goal for me - to weigh between 250 and 280.  Even when (yay!  WHEN not IF!) I hit that goal, I'll stil be obese according to BMI, but they're saying with my build and muscle mass that seems to be the right weight for me.

I wish they'd felt that way when I first was trying to get the surgery.  Originally my surgeon turned me down without seeing me because my BMI was too high.  Once he met me and looked at my body he agreed to move forward as my build wasn't represented well by the BMI numbers.

BMI seems to exist to make insurance companies happy and the rest of us miserable.