A Response to: Seventeen Magazine's BMI Calculator

I had always scoffed at the teenagers who petitioned to magazines against them casting skinny and tall models for photo shoots.  I never believed that Seventeen, a magazine directed toward people from their pre-teens to young adults, was trying to tell readers that being slender and tall was beautiful.  Yet, after I stumbled upon a petition against Seventeen for their BMI calculator on change.org, a website where anyone can make, share, and rally others to fight for his or her cause, I found myself disgusted with what the magazine is teaching girls.

Although the website accurately calculates BMI, Seventeen’s ‘healthy ranges’ are far off the true healthy ranges adapted from the Clinical Guidelines on the Identification, Evaluation, and Treatment of Overweight and Obesity in Adults: The Evidence Report, the ranges that are used by the government to determine who is considered within a healthy ranges, on the brink of becoming obese, or already obese.

Whereas anywhere from a 19-24 is considered within the healthy range, Seventeen declares that anywhere from a 14.8 to a 21.7 is the healthy BMI range for sixteen year olds.  After playing around with the numbers on their BMI calculator I realized that if I were to gain a mere five pounds, I would be considered obese by Seventeen’s standard of healthy.

A BMI of 17.5 is considered the standard for diagnosing anorexia and a BMI of 15 is considered severely overweight.  Yet, Seventeen believes that these numbers lie within the ‘healthy ranges’ for teenage girls.

Studies conducted by the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders show that “95% of those who have eating disorders are between the ages of 12 and 25.8,” the prime age that Seventeen targets.  As anorexia holds the “highest mortality rate of any mental disorder,” it is necessary that Seventeen realizes how skewed its numbers are so that teens can practice healthy habits without the pressures of being considered thin and beautiful. 

I invite you all to sign the petition created by Lauren Stalnaker on change.org.  The petition can be found here: http://www.change.org/petitions/seventeen-magazine-correct-their-bmi-calculator-s-definition-of-healthy-range.