I’m obese???

Are the clinical trials some sort of diet pills or something by any chance?

No, it’s for a chlamydia vaccine

BMI literally takes weight and heigh and plots it on a curve. It's relatively meaningless in terms of actual health of an individual, but it is useful as a comparator within a large group of individuals, hence why it's used for lots of medical categories.

It’s because we are so used to seeing fat people that it appears normal. I am very obese, but know someone who is the mirror of me and I would only describe her as chubby. What a lot of people would describe as “skinny” is actually the ideal weight.

Good luck in your weight loss journey 🙂

like when I tell people how much I weigh they don’t believe me because no one has much of a perception of what weight can look like on different bodies.

So how would your doctor know to tell you to be worried about your weight?

Doctors wouldn't really tell you to worry about your weight, because worrying about your weight isn't very good for your mental health. Instead, doctors would look at what your complaint is, and consider whether weight might be a factor, but these days they rarely prescribe weight loss as a treatment because they recognise that health is a far more complex factor and furthermore, prescribing weigh loss for health only makes overweight people less likely to attend the doctors, meaning any genuine health issues are caught at much later and more dangerous stages.

If you want an overall health check, they might take your weight and height, but they could also measure things like blood pressure, cholesterol levels, blood sugar, skin health, lung capacity and oxygen intake, metabolism rates, body fat and body muscle content, as well as visceral fat levels as a proportion of total fat content. They might take urine and stool samples. They might do additional blood work to check things like liver and kidney function. BMI can only ever tell you height and weight, and there's so much more to someone's individual health picture than those two numbers.

Doctors wouldn't really tell you to worry about your weight, because worrying about your weight isn't very good for your mental health. Instead, doctors would look at what your complaint is, and consider whether weight might be a factor, but these days they rarely prescribe weight loss as a treatment because they recognise that health is a far more complex factor and furthermore, prescribing weigh loss for health only makes overweight people less likely to attend the doctors, meaning any genuine health issues are caught at much later and more dangerous stages.

If you want an overall health check, they might take your weight and height, but they could also measure things like blood pressure, cholesterol levels, blood sugar, skin health, lung capacity and oxygen intake, metabolism rates, body fat and body muscle content, as well as visceral fat levels as a proportion of total fat content. They might take urine and stool samples. They might do additional blood work to check things like liver and kidney function. BMI can only ever tell you height and weight, and there's so much more to someone's individual health picture than those two numbers.

Doctors wouldn't really tell you to worry about your weight, because worrying about your weight isn't very good for your mental health. Instead, doctors would look at what your complaint is, and consider whether weight might be a factor, but these days they rarely prescribe weight loss as a treatment because they recognise that health is a far more complex factor and furthermore, prescribing weigh loss for health only makes overweight people less likely to attend the doctors, meaning any genuine health issues are caught at much later and more dangerous stages.

If you want an overall health check, they might take your weight and height, but they could also measure things like blood pressure, cholesterol levels, blood sugar, skin health, lung capacity and oxygen intake, metabolism rates, body fat and body muscle content, as well as visceral fat levels as a proportion of total fat content. They might take urine and stool samples. They might do additional blood work to check things like liver and kidney function. BMI can only ever tell you height and weight, and there's so much more to someone's individual health picture than those two numbers.

And tell me how they would check body composition accurately?

There's a widely available type of weighing scales that can tell you, it's been around for decades, but they've obviously continuously improved the technology for more accurate measurements.

They have them in my gym too - there's one you can pop a pound in to use in the hallway, or a fancier looking one in the gym's office you can use if you don't mind the staff member there seeing your measurements. Pretty sure my mum's bathroom scales does it too, it's nothing special.

There's a widely available type of weighing scales that can tell you, it's been around for decades, but they've obviously continuously improved the technology for more accurate measurements.

They have them in my gym too - there's one you can pop a pound in to use in the hallway, or a fancier looking one in the gym's office you can use if you don't mind the staff member there seeing your measurements. Pretty sure my mum's bathroom scales does it too, it's nothing special.