Data from the long running Framingham Heart study shows that 'The oldest adults who lived the longest had a BMI of 27, as long as they kept it that that way and didn't let it increase, with exercise the single most important factor in keeping weight gain in check'.
The bad news is that as you get older you need less food . At 35-44 a man requires2.629 calories dropping to 2,342 at 65. For women of the same age it drops from 2, 103 to 1,912 at 65. All bets are off if you become obese, but a bit of padding is apparently not a bad thing.
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Ianc2
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Me too, was 75kg pre event, can't get over 65kg now 😢
Don't think it helps that I am now doing more cardio than weights, always did heavy weights to build and gain weight, now don't push the weights beyond 50% of what I used to 😒
in reply to
Funny thing is when I was 75kg i was classed as overweight BMI ~25, yet I didn't have an oz of fat on me, one thing BMI does not take in to account is muscle mass!
I used to be around 65kg but after gallbladder op 6 months ago went down to 55kg and now struggle to put any on, despite the daily diet of chocolate and cake 🙄 think I'm now about 58-59kg BMI 18 😕
People don't understand it can be as hard, if not harder, to gain weight as to lose it. Especially to gain 'good' weight.
I found many years ago when I started weight training, that it helped me to gain weight if I cut down on the choc's & cakes & chips etc, as I have a fast metabolism I was just speeding it up & burning it off.
I think I'll pass on the weight training 🤔 I would just like a bit of padding round my pacemaker as it's a bit uncomfortable and tight now, hey ho ''tis what it is.
A good article as to why BMI is barely useful even as a guide!
Bmi is about as much use as a chocolate fireguard imo . And calorific intake does alter with age, but again is dictated to by a lot of factors, exercise, movement etc, this is what people forget, higher protein helps with limited carbs . Weights as you say are perfect for controlling weight whereas cardio not so much, but good for heart health .
BMI isn't perfect. For example I doubt a single member of England's rugby team would be classed as having a healthy BMI.
An alternative metric is that your waist should be no more than half of your height. So if you're six feet tall then you should have a waist that's 36" or less. If you're five feet four inches then you should have a waist that's 32" or less. One key point though, you can't take your trouser size as your waist measurement, clothing manufacturers flatter to deceive, so most people's trouser size is actually 4-6" smaller than their true waist size!
This quick calculation has the benefit of getting to the heart of the problem, excess belly fat is strongly correlated with having a blanket layer of fat around your organs, which in turn puts you at a significantly elevated risk of heart problems, strokes, and type 2 diabetes.
Yes the focus is always on people that are over weight.I have gone from 68 kg to 58 kgs since heart attack and stents 8 months ago in spite of very good appetite. Several tests later no explanation as to why and no advise how to put it back on.
A lot of the longer running research projects were put together before the introduction of modern data processing capabilities. The BMI measure is simple and was adopted for that reason. If you are looking for broad trends amongst large numbers of people it still provides useful data?
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Cardiovascular Rehab - what's that?
What should I do? High Calcification of the arteries
What happens now and when 
Just what is a healthy diet?
