This interesting calculator allows you to view where your BMI data stands relative to the national average from 177 countries:

www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-18770328

"You have a higher BMI than 87% of females aged 30-44 in your country."

Well gee, that's made my day.

It's only 52% if I emphasise my British half.

What is going on in Croatia to make their results so high?

Anyway, pretty much what I would have expected. My BMI is marginally above the healthy range. Which translates to being below average for Britain males, above average against males worldwide.

I'm below average for every single one of the countries listed. Bloody hell. BMI of 17. Lower than 99% of males in the UK, 99% of males in Argentina, and 91% of males worldwide aged 15-29 (although given I'm near the top of that age range and it includes a lot of still-growing people, it strikes me as a bit of an odd range for them to pick).

I am 'most like' someone from DR Congo. I'm sure the menfolk of DR Congo would be delighted to know that.

Not sure that's particularly healthy Sam, anything under 20's supposed to be seriously underweight, but once you're healthy, you'll manage. I'm supposedly thinner than 80% of Irish men in my age bracket, but given my reading was 23, that says more about the rest of the population than myself. Though they do say Brian O'Driscoll would be rated as obese on a BMI scale, so their reliability is open to question.

Hmm. 24. Not bad - lower than 84% of males in my age group in the UK, but more surprisingly, 70% of males in France.

17 is ridiculous, Sam - I put in Bradley Wiggins's readings and he only manages 19.

Someone did once tell me that apparently Mike Tyson at his peak would have counted as morbidly obese under these calculations, but I have no idea what his height and fighting weight was.

That Croatian figure must be wrong. I've been there a couple of times and never seen any particularly fat people. In fact, they're mostly tall skinny bastards.

I'm an honorary Solomon Islander, unfortunately.

The basic BMI scale used in online calculators doesn't work for professional athletes, as it assumes average body shapes. If a doctor was to try and work it out seriously for you, he ought to take slightly more factors than your height, weight, gender and age into consideration.
However, for the non-professional athletes or otherwise similarly away from the norm body types amongst the population, which I suspect includes most of us, it's probably a good guide. I could do with losing 5kg (at least), and I accept this as sensible.

Thanks for your concern, DR and kugelrund, but I'll be okay. It's genetic, I have a very fast metabolism and my grandad lived to a ripe old age despite being taller than me (by an inch) and a stone lighter when he was the age I am now.

That's uncanny. Skinnier than 65% of Brits. "I am most like someone from....The Netherlands". I have been imperceptibly becoming Dutch.

I am most like someone from France, apparently. Well, duh.

I have been imperceptibly becoming Dutch.

I thought the same about myself and my transmogrification into a German. (I don't cross the road when the man's red; I knock on tables when I greet a group of people in a pub; I eat my breakfast off a piece of wood; all sorts, really.)

And now I discover that I'm most like somebody from Laos.

Someone did once tell me that apparently Mike Tyson at his peak would have counted as morbidly obese under these calculations, but I have no idea what his height and fighting weight was.

Because I've got a thing about sportspersons' height and weight, I recall Tyson being 1.80 metres tall and weighing roughly 100 kg. The younger Klitschko brother would be similarly "obese", I think.

BMI is a generally useful measure.

Of course, like most generalisations, there are anomalies at the extremes, like if you have a lot of muscle mass.

But most people don't have a lot of muscle mass.

I'm most like someone from Rwanda.

Yes, the BMI for certain sports stars is a useful stat if you're looking for excuses to grab that fourth doughnut. Mine is about the same as the All Blacks' captain.

I'm fatter than everybody in the entire world, according to that. Thanks, BBC.

Why do you think that some of us haven't bothered...

If it's any consolation, being "fatter" than everybody else doesn't appear to be that difficult.

A bloke I play football with is 32 years old, 1.73 metres tall and weighs 90 kilogrammes. I've not asked him about his muscle mass, but I don't think he's got all that much of it; if he had, he probably wouldn't be playing with a load of old codgers and he wouldn't let himself get pushed off the ball as easily as he does.

This makes him "fatter" than 94% of all the people in his home country (France). Yet he doesn't look like a fat bastard and he definitely doesn't move like a fat bastard. Because he isn't a fat bastard.

So he's just a nice fellow who happens to be fat?

Sam Kelly wrote:

Oh, I wasn't concerned about your health, I was just impressed.

In fact, I've got this complicated museum blag coming up that calls for a lot of shimmying through air-conditioning shafts, if you're free...?