So you think you might be fat.

But how do you know?

This is not a stupid question. I can only talk about the women I know, but it seems to me that nothing makes women, as a group, more miserable than WEIGHT - regardless of whether they’re 7 stone or 17 stone. They all think they’re fat. Even if they have been told by a doctor that they aren’t fat, even if they are comfortably within what is said to be the “healthy range” for their height, they all seem to think that they could do with losing half a stone.

But why? How do you know you’re fat? Because you don’t like what you see in the mirror? Because your clothes are getting tight? Because your boyfriend’s started making pointed comments about going to the gym? Did your mother ask if you needed that second slice of cake? Did your father take you aside and ask if you wanted to end up like your mother? Did you suddenly realise that the reason 1994 was the happiest year of your life was that you’d managed to get down to 10 stone? Did you divide your weight in pounds by your height in inches squared and realise that the chart says you’re overweight? Is your waist-hip ratio too high? Or perhaps you’ve just been to your doctor hoping for antibiotics for your cough and came out with an appointment with the surgery nutritionist instead?

I am fascinated by the many methods that exist to tell you whether you’re fat or not. The one I find particularly interesting is the BMI calculator, because that’s currently the most popular way of working out whether or not you’re overweight. Divide your weight in pounds by your height in inches squared and the figure you get allegedly tells you whether you’re healthy or not. If you’re 18.5 or under, you’re “underweight”. If you’re over 18.5 but under 25, you’re “healthy”. If you’re 25 or over but under 30, you’re “overweight”. If you’re 30+ you are “obese”.

Simple? Yes. Reliable? Ha ha ha ha ha ha. There’s a question. The BMI calculator relies on weight. Weight means nothing without context. 225lb on paper tells you nothing. It might describe someone obese, or someone overweight. Or it might describe a bodybuilder with 7% body fat. Generally speaking putting height into the mix won’t help you much with that. Muscle is denser than fat. You can carry a lot of muscle, be very very healthy, look pretty svelte and weigh 225lb, which is why the BMI calculator says that many bodybuilders are clinically obese. It knows that they weigh a lot, but it doesn’t know why, or what was weighed. The what and the why are very important if you care about your health.

So, arguably, is the where. The BMI calculator doesn’t take account of where weight is carried. A heavier woman who carries her weight on her hips and bust is generally considered to be less at risk of weight-related health problems than a lighter woman of the same height who carries her weight around her middle, but the BMI calculator doesn’t care where the weight is. If they are both the same height, and the heavier woman’s BMI is 28 and the lighter woman’s BMI is 22, then the BMI calculator thinks the lighter woman is healthier, even though study after study shows that she isn’t. That’s why the Waist/Hip Ratio is considered by some people to be a better indicator of health than the BMI calculator.

Also, let’s not forget that the goalposts get moved every now and then. Perhaps that’s not surprising for a system that was actually invented in the 19th century for people who were a very different shape and size from us today, but even so. I remember, when I was about 16, that the BMI’s healthy range was something like 19 to 27.5. I can’t remember the bottom end, but I know that the top end was 27.5, not 25. At some point - 1998, apparently, but I hadn’t discovered body dysmorphia then so I didn’t notice - the bracket was changed to below 25.

This is despite study after study concluding that “obese” and “overweight” people live longer than “healthy” people. I remember driving to work a couple of years ago and hearing a study along those lines being reported on the radio. “Scientists believe that being slightly overweight may be better for you than being in the healthy range”, announced the newsreader, without a trace of irony. I was laughing so hard I had to pull over. Except that actually it’s not that funny. What the fuck is going on here? Didn’t it occur to anyone In Charge that perhaps if “obese” and “overweight” people are healthier than “healthy” people, it’s time to revisit our definition of “healthy”?

Okay, yes, I am on a bit of a soapbox. But with reason, dammit. Here’s why I think the BMI calculator is crap. A few years ago I was referred to a diet doctor who happened to be sensible about the BMI. He measured my height, weighed me on the scales, and said, “The BMI calculator says your ideal weight is between 9 stone 13 and 12 stone 6. But I’m looking at you and I think your ideal weight is going to be at least a stone and a half to two stone above that. Let’s get you down to that and then we’ll review whether you need to go any further.”

Me: “But the BMI -”

Him: “- is just a guideline. Trust me. Let’s not have you aiming for a weight you were never meant to be, okay?”

He was right. I’m 5′10, big frame, broad shoulders. I build muscle quite easily. When I managed to get myself down to 14 stone 7lb the year before last, I was a comfortable size 12-14 (American 10-12). I’m never going to look skinny, but at that weight I was reasonably slim (not thin) and healthy, if considerably bigger than both of the Olsen twins tied together. And I was able maintain that weight without going hungry. I would say that it was the weight at which I was happiest both in terms of my looks and in terms of my eating. It was when I tried to get down to 12 stone 6, the top of the BMI range for my height, that I became unstuck.

OK. So. Want to know what my BMI was at 14stone 7lb?

29.

According to the BMI calculator, at 5′10, 14 stone 7lb and dress size 12-14, I was seriously overweight and one point off clinically obese.

This is bollocks. Bollocks. I know what obese looks like and I promise you I was nowhere near it at that weight. But okay, okay, I can’t speak for everyone and I’m not a scientist. Let me put it this way: for me, BMI is seriously flawed as a measure of ideal weight. I don’t think it should be seen as anything more than a starting point. I think that aiming for an unrealistic weight on the basis of the BMI calculator is at least 75% of the reason I put so much weight back on after I’d lost it, and I wonder how many other women give up or go off the rails because they’re trying to get to a place they were never meant to be. It doesn’t help that most slimming programmes and some doctors (although in fairness not mine) rely on the BMI to tell people how heavy they should be. I think it’s a matter of feel, and that people shouldn’t be afraid to set their goal above the BMI if their instinct tells them that that’s where they are meant to be.

I can only speak for myself, but this time I have decided to stop struggling blindly towards some random figure spat out by a logarithm that can’t begin to take into account all the quirks and characteristics of my body that make me ME, rather than a gingerbread cut-out. This time, as I lose weight, I’m going to try, instead, to feel my way towards a weight that allows me to feel well in myself, and confident about my looks, and to eat healthily and effortlessly, without having to think about it too much.

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NB: the starting point for many of the links in this post was Shapely Prose, a fat acceptance blog. Most fat acceptance blogs actively avoid the promotion of weight loss because they consider dieting to be responsible for disordered eating. They have a point. I don’t think that losing weight is a bad thing in and of itself - obviously, or I wouldn’t be trying to do it myself - but I do believe that it is entirely possible to be fat, healthy and happy just as it’s possible to be thin, miserable and unhealthy. I really recommend this site and the sites it links to to anyone who feels that being fat puts your life on hold.