Talk:Underweight

Health
Can something please be done about the false conflation of "underweight" by BMI and actually not weighing enough to be healthy, as opposed to "not weighing enough" by the standards of a metric that was never intended to be used for individuals?

Treatment
The treatment section, please God the treatment section? Just read it, it's God awful... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.106.144.217 (talk) 14:41, 17 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Indeed, it's not very well written. Not all the information is bad, but the structure is very poor and leads to confusion. 75.72.7.108 (talk) 22:04, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

Metric Measurements
Please add metric units to the graph on this page, and possibly convert it to .svg. Otherwise, use the graph on the topic Body Mass Index, which has both metric measurements, and is in .svg format 18:10, 14 May 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.4.72.193 (talk)

Anti-thin bias
As a rather thin--but perfectly healthy--teenager who is neither anorexic nor bulimic, I find this page both offensive and factually inaccurate. I'm not sure why the author of this article felt the need to define all thin people as underweight, but I suspect it has something to do with current cultural bias against "skinny girls". There is nothing wrong with your body unless you are fainting all over the place or (on the other end of the scale) having trouble moving or developing heart problems. Get over it.

I'm making extensive changes to this article so it doesn't sound like we're all freakish anorexics. Jediserra 01:10, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

(The reason why 'thin' redirects to 'underweight' is because it was put here by an American). Thin is considered abnormal in that country. Obesity reigns. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 195.93.21.33 (talk • contribs).
 * This is disappointing. 75.72.7.108 (talk) 01:25, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

The third paragraph sounds a bit accusitory, so perhaps it should be changed a bit.

This article is BS. Being thin is not underweight, it is normal. Being fat is gross and being thin is how you should be. Only in the USA is thin "underweight", there they expect you to have three chins and an ass bigger than a bus to be considered at "ideal weight".
 * Yes, I must agree that Wikipedia seems to have an "anti-thin" bias.- Amorwikipedia 16:54, 7 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Teenagers naturally tend to not weigh as much as their adult counterparts! Some people do have very fast metabolisms and just want to look/feel more "normal" by gaining weight. Most people think of losing weight when there are others trying to gain... Ah the irony. People come in all sizes and shapes. What is the "ideal weight"? It's all in your head.


 * Wikipedia shouldn't have an anti-thin bias in its articles. If it does, please change them to reflect a neutral point of view.--h i s  s p a c e   r e s e a r c h 01:29, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Cultural bias
I am working in a third world country where undernourishment and malnourishment is rampant. I came to this page looking if there might be some information on how underweight is defined. In this respect the article was somewhat helpful. But I was certainly a bit miffed when the page suggested that underweight people should eat more peanut butter.

As it happens I (as a westerner) am underweight myself, and although I already eat as much fat as I can stomach, I don't think the advise is unhelpful in the context it is aimed at (affluent societies). But certainly it seems fitting to edit the article to reflect the fact that the cause of underweight in most of the world is extreme poverty. /J

Although I am certainly not an expert on the matter,one cannot help but notice how ridiculously biased this article is. "...scant attention is paid to those that need to gain weight..." Perhaps a more neutral point of view would be in order, not an article following suit in the "craze" over people who are thin and the use of anorexia as a scapegoat.

Actually, I have this problem (can't gain weight myself,) and I can tell you that "scant attention" IS paid to us. Doctors concur. Also Peanut Butter has been recommended to me by every dietition I go to. If one wants information on causes of underweight children in impoverished countries they should probably look up malnutrition.

Author of this article, you might think thin people are "bizarre". As a Californian, I know that because of our states' diversity, we each can create prejudice on one another! Nobody rules out! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
 * Added a NPOV dispute tag to the top of the page.h i s  s p a c e   r e s e a r c h 01:32, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Also, the countries with the fastest rising rates of obesity are the newly industrialised/Second World countries, apparently - not the poorest states, but the ones that are semi-developed.-h i s  s p a c e   r e s e a r c h 17:42, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

I wish everone could be skinny
I am a skinny teenager from Ireland, all my friends are obsessed with how fat they think they are. It makes me feel fat when they complain about their 'bellies'. I just wish everyone could be a size ten or eight (American size six or two) and everyone could be happy and skinny. My greatest fear is that I become fat. And yes, this article is biased, it made me feel bad to be skinny. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 159.134.232.59 (talk) 12:37, 2 April 2007 (UTC).

Please Flag This Article...
This is the worst article I've ever seen on Wikipedia. I don't know how, but can somebody flag it for deletion or something so an Admin can do something with it? It's awfully bad and incomplete. Mjlissner 23:11, 2 April 2007 (UTC)


 * If it's bad or something is wrong you should consider working to improve it. Wikipedia is a community effort. Nja247 (talk • contribs) 12:59, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Clean up and creation of another page
Well, forget the clean up section for now, I have created a thin (body) page which used to be a redirect here so we can all try to form it into something useful. JayKeaton 02:32, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Oh, I should probably explain. Pages "thin" and stuff used to redirect here, suggesting that anyone that was skinny or slender was medically underweight. But now with a thin (body) page the medically underweight can be reffered to here and people that are thin and healthy and also on thiness in culture, can go to a real page that doesn't tell them that they are feeble, sick and should eat peanut butter! JayKeaton 02:46, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

BMI?
An underweight BMI is under 18.5, and nowhere uses 20.00 to classify as underweight. No reference cites this (as there are no references), so I am deleting it. If anyone can come up with a reliable source to show that somewhere actually uses 20.00 as underweight, feel free to add it back in. --NeonRoses 18:18, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

BMI is an unfair measure
BMI is generally recognised as being a flawed method of measuring ideal size as it takes no consideration of muscle. A prefered method is waist circumference.

I am also interested in the emotional issue involved in being underweight, I find stuff like this:ways to be skinny an instresting take on the anorexia issue and wonder if this could be explored in the article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.2.209.218 (talk) 23:34, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

osteoporosis and underweight
I don't want to comment other parts of the article. I have added the chapter about osteoporosis because of own experience: In 2005, at the age of 44, I got two spontaneous spinal fractures and this disease has been diagnosed. I am male, an endocrine reason for osteoporosis has not been found, but there was a particularity: Since the age of 18 I performed intensive daily ergometer training, and kept underweight (BMI 17-18). When looking at literature at the age of 18 I got the impression that this lifestyle is good for health and kept it up without further scrutinizing it, because I felt fit. The osteoporotic fractures have been very surprising for me and my environment. Now experts told me that underweight is dangerous for bones. After noticing this danger, I corrected weight and sport. Ergometer training was done less intensive and partially replaced by strength training. Within 16 months the DXA T-score (bone density) at L2 increased from -4,6 to -3,4.

Osteoporosis section restored
The new citation shows not only that there is a close correlation between bone mineral density (BMD) and body mass, it also makes detailed quantitative considerations. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wqq (talk • contribs) 12:00, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
 * I recommend that you actually rewrite the paragraph, as the writing does not fulfill Wikipedia standards. It does not reflect the actual citation, either. "They can feel fit and may be brilliant..." is original research. - Cyborg Ninja  17:40, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

If you simply write "underweight people can develop osteoporosis" this is not very convincing. The reader may associate this with little old ladies, think "of course they can have osteoporosis", and jump to the conclusion "I am not in this group". The phrase "They can feel fit and may be brilliant in endurance sports" should clarify the danger also for underweight young athletes who intensively make endurance sports (and erroneously assume that this is good for their health, not knowing about the danger). Now there are additional citations concerning this, so that the paragraph reflects the citations.

Suggest changing primary diagnostic reference from BMI to Body Fat Percentage and some other things.
As has been mentioned, BMI is inaccurate as a diagnostic tool for weight problems. I suggest changing the emphasis from BMI to BF% as indicator of being underweight. Apart from that, the article needs better sources for some of its assertions, and better style. Also, the article gives the impression that "underweight" is often used as a noun. As far as I know, this usage is nonstandard. "Underweight" is usually used as an adjective. I suggest that more emphasis is also placed on diet as treatment. The section on exercise as treatment is misleading, because increasing muscle mass while BF% stays low would still make one underweight. — Preceding unsigned comment added by UnassumingName (talk • contribs) 18:47, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

More on genetics
I noticed Mirror extreme BMI phenotypes associated with gene dosage at the chromosome 16p11.2 locus (2011) a while back. Currently the article just cites a couple popular news articles. Trying to find a good review but having issues - most are focused on obesity (which might also be relevant)... according to SNPedia there is a whole category of FTO (Fat mass and obesity related) genes II  | (t - c) 20:21, 29 October 2016 (UTC)