Wauw some od those African countries are really into sports and at race weight...

State, not country, but the data are the data.

I get viet Nam. Lose 7 pounds and Id get Eritrea.

That's a great chart. I'm curious to see what Colorado's legalization of marijuana does to their place on that chart. They'll either get fatter or more liberal (or both?) ;-)

The Rocky Mountain states look like they have about the same slope but a different intercept.

That's actually a pretty fascinating observation.

 Iraqis are surprisingly portly.
Have they added all the British and American oil workers on that stat ?

I can't believe I'm "Rwanda" at 170lbs. (6'4")

My BMI is 25. I know that it’s right on the border of “overweight,” but I’m not overweight at all. I’m pretty active, though nothing like my days training for IM (can’t believe this is the tenth year since my last tri).

I compare to Ghana, for men 45-49. I think that’s a pretty stable country with a growing middle class. I’m at the 50th percentile in the world, but tellingly, I have a lower BMI than 83% (!!!!!) than American men in my AG.

What I'm trying to figure out is how every individual state can be below the US average. I didn't think that was how averages worked or am I missing something? Are there different definitions of obesity?

If you're talking about that graph, it's the percent obese, not the percentile rank.

btw, obesity by state also tracks closely with black population, as obesity among black people is much higher than among white.

24 BMI
72.5in 178lbs

China



National
Below average
You have a lower BMI than 84% of males aged 30-44 in your country

Global
Below average
You have a lower BMI than 52% of males aged 30-44 in the world

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https://www.strava.com/...tes/zachary_mckinney

most obese countries in the world. Top 10 are in the South Pacific, then a lot of middle east in addition to US.
11 KUWAIT 37.90 2016
12 UNITED STATES 36.20 2016
13 JORDAN 35.50 2016
14 SAUDI ARABIA 35.40 2016
15 QATAR 35.10 2016
16 LIBYA 32.50 2016
17 TURKEY 32.10 2016
18 EGYPT 32.00 2016
19 LEBANON 32.00 2016
20 UNITED ARAB EMIRATES 31.70 2016
21 BAHAMAS, THE 31.60 2016
22 NEW ZEALAND 30.80 2016
23 IRAQ 30.40 2016

Echo that. Incredible.

Haha, this is great. My BMI is lower than 91% in US and 71% in the world. My equivalent country? Chad. Mrs. giorgitd said that this is nothing to be proud of - my BMI aligned with countries that are starving (so she says)...

Exactly. So the US average is about 40% in adults and no state on that graph is much higher than around 36%. Which wouldn't make sense. I think the clue is a line in Wikipedia -

"Care should be taken in interpreting these numbers, because they are based on self-report surveys which asked individuals (or, in case of children and adolescents, their parents) to report their height and weight. Height is commonly overreported and weight underreported, sometimes resulting in significantly lower estimates. One study estimated the difference between actual and self-reported obesity as 7% among males and 13% among females as of 2002, with the tendency to increase"

Bump all those states up by that estimate and you could see where the 40% comes from. So presumably the national figure is derived some other way than self reporting and avoids that error. Which is why it's higher. No biggie just seemed odd.

Bottom of the scale. Bangladesh.

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Let food be thy medicine...

I got Haiti.

Surprised to find Croatia at 3rd place. We've visited twice. Did not see very many fat people at all. At least not on the coast or their capital. Everyone looked fit. Maybe their version of rednecks out in the country are fat?

Lol, Mali.

Here’s a thought. Obesity and sugar addiction drives world wide pillage of lands that could have stayed wild. All so you can carry around some excess blubber. Fatties destroying the Earth.

Hmmm. I'm 1m83 and currently weigh 67kg (race weight- have been building and peaking for a half marathon in 2 weeks- usually I weigh more like 70kg).

Eritrea.

The bit that worries me a little- lower BMI than 98% men aged 45-49 in my country, and lower than 85% in the world.

I feel fine, but not sure this is the best place to be... or more people would be there, right?

I don't know about your BMI specifically but I wouldn't compare to average BMI. The average has ballooned beyond all reason starting in about 1980. Average American male is 5'9" with a 40" waist and weights 200 lbs. Average woman is 5'4", 39 waist, and 170lbs. It is absurd.

BMI doesn't take into account other factors, like body fat% or waist size.

I'm BMI 26, but 10.8% body fat at my last test. Weight/fat% will go down slightly as I start to build for my next major event.

Ten years ago, when all I did was lift weights with moderate cardio, my BMI was even higher with a lower body fat %.

The Croatia result doesn't surprise me. Some buff dudes in that part of the world.

BMI is a meh test. I'd take lab results over BMI as an indicator of health.

Ah this again? BMI is not a good measure due to 1% percent of people who lift and are buff enough to push their BMI up?

No. BMI is a good measure for overall public. BMI has not increased over the past 40 years because people lift. It's increased because they sit on their ass, drive to their mailbox, and eat food laced with HFCS.

Just because BMI doesn't work for you, or a small percentage of other people, doesn't mean it is useless.