Editorial policy

This page describes how BodyStats content is produced, sourced, checked and corrected. It is a commitment you can hold us to.

Sourcing

Every formula, threshold and factual claim traces to a primary source: peer-reviewed literature, official health-body publications (WHO, NICE, FAO/WHO/UNU), or the original technical reports behind a method. We link to DOIs and official publication pages. We do not cite other calculator sites, content farms, or secondary summaries as authority for a number.

Where a figure is widely repeated across the internet but we cannot verify it against a primary source we can actually read, we say so on the page, in the place where the number would otherwise sit, rather than dropping it silently or citing a summary as though it were authority. "We could not verify this" is useful information; a confident unsourced number is not. That happens in several places on this site, and it is meant to.

Accuracy and uncertainty

Where a method has a published error band, we display it with the result rather than in a footnote: the Navy tape method's ±3–4 percentage points and TDEE's ±10–15% are printed next to the numbers themselves. Where recognised classification systems disagree, we show them side by side and explain why, instead of silently picking one. Where a method has documented failure cases, the result says so when your inputs fall into one.

Calculation integrity

The calculation engine is a single set of pure functions shared by the server and your browser, so a result can never differ between the page you are served and the page after it loads. Every formula is covered by an automated test suite with locked expected values; a change that moves any published result fails the build before it can ship. Safety limits on calorie targets are enforced inside those functions, not merely written in the surrounding copy.

Sensitive content

We describe numbers, not people: results say a value "falls in the obese class I range under the WHO classification", never "you are obese". We do not use before-and-after imagery, weight-loss transformation framing, or "ideal body" language. We do not offer aggressive or crash-diet options at all, we refuse goal weights below the healthy range for a person's height, and we do not run adult formulas for anyone under 18. Where a result is at the low end or a goal is refused, we show calm signposting to clinical and support services, and advertising is suppressed on that page render.

Advertising independence

Advertising never influences content. Ads are placed below results and in article bodies, never between an input and its answer, never above the fold, and never on the medical disclaimer, methodology, low-BMI or blocked-goal pages. We accept no affiliate relationships with supplements, diet pills or weight-loss programs.

How often sources are re-checked

Every cited source on this site is re-checked at least once every twelve months. A re-check means opening the source, reading the figure off it again, and confirming the link still resolves to the document we cited, not glancing at our own page. Where nothing has changed, nothing is edited and the page's updated date does not move, because a freshness date that shifts without a content change is a lie told to a search engine.

Three things trigger an immediate re-check, ahead of that cycle: a health body publishes a new or revised guideline touching a threshold we display; a reader writes in with a correction; or a cited standard reaches a new edition. Where a re-check changes a published number, the page is updated, the test vectors are updated with it, and the change is recorded on the changelog.

Use of AI tools

AI tools are used here, in drafting and in checking: outlining a page, drafting and tightening prose, and re-reading an implementation for mistakes a single author would miss. Nothing is published on that basis alone. Every formula, coefficient, threshold and citation is verified against the primary source (the paper, the technical report or the official publication itself) before the page goes live, and every computed result is pinned to a test vector worked out by hand from the published equation.

A named human, Rick Campbell, is accountable for everything that ships, including anything an AI tool got wrong. "The model wrote it" is not an excuse we will offer you.

Corrections and the public changelog

If you believe something here is wrong (a formula, a threshold, a citation, a claim), email hello@bodystats.co with the page and what you think is incorrect. We aim to acknowledge within five working days. Substantive errors in a formula or threshold are fixed immediately on confirmation, and the fix is covered by a new automated test so the same error cannot return. We would rather be corrected than be confidently wrong.

Corrections are not made quietly. Every substantive change and every confirmed error is recorded on the changelog with the date it shipped and what it changed, including the corrections nobody would choose to advertise, which are the reason the page exists. A confirmed error in a formula or threshold is fixed immediately rather than batched into a release, and the new automated test is written against the corrected value, so the same mistake cannot return without failing the build.

Review status

No content on this site is currently medically reviewed, and we do not claim otherwise. See medical review.