: Body mass index of body builders

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Have checked some of the body builders BODY MASS INDEX (BMI) which is pretty unhealthy as they are more than 25. Does this mean they are unhealthy??

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8 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

BMI does not take into account body composition. It treats mass as mass. So, fat and muscle are treated the same in the calculation. A person who is very lean but also very muscular could weight the same as a person that has little muscle mass but has a lot of fat. If these people were the same age and the same height, they would have the same BMI. But some would likely consider the muscular person to be healthier than the person with the large amount of fat. That is why a lot of doctors are moving away from using BMI as the sole means of estimating health. However, it is an easy data point to look at and society prefers simple metrics when it comes to labeling people or marking progress.

Anonymous 0 Comments

BMI is only useful as a very general tool to at a glance, determine if a relatively average person is under/overweight. Having a high or low BMI does not mean that you are overweight – simply that if you have an average frame, bone density, and muscle mass that you are over/underweight. Anyone that falls significantly outside the average (such as bodybuilders), BMI is completely useless for.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Body mass index is just calculated based on height and weight. It doesn’t – and can’t – account for the difference between muscle and fat, so a 5’10” person who works out constantly, has big muscles, and weighs 200 lbs will have the same BMI as a 5’10” person who never works out, eats pure junk food, and weighs 200 lbs due to lots of excess fat.

BMI can be kind of helpful as a quick metric for “average” people but if you’re very muscular (for example) it’s not helpful because it doesn’t know the difference between weight from muscle and weight from fat.

It’s a very simple “quick picture” type of metric but to know if someone’s healthy or not you need more than just two data points.

Anonymous 0 Comments

The BMI is an approximation which gives a ballpark estimate of whether a person has healthy or unhealthy weight. It works ok for an average person, but bodybuilders are in general not average, so their “normal” BMI would be higher. That said, professional bodybuilders definitely do not have a healthy lifestyle, same as other professional athletes.

Anonymous 0 Comments

BMI is just a “rule of thumb” kinda thing. it applies to bodies that are somewhat “normal” as in not professionally trained. so it doesnt really make sense to draw conclusions by applying it somewhere where it isnt applicable.

that being said, there are definitely some bodybuilders that have somewhat unhealthy bodies, not in the way most of “us” have them, but still unbalanced.

Anonymous 0 Comments

No, BMI is not supposed to be used for individuals as there are factors like muscle mass which mess it up, BMI is supposed to be used for population studies where the muscle mass is evened out over the population.

Anonymous 0 Comments

A better impeachment of BMI would be an NFL running back. Those guys frequently go 5’8″ to 6′ and 200 pounds plus. Way overweight according to BMI. Yet extraordinarily healthy with daily professional guidance on physical training and diet.

The most common BMI charts will tell you to apply carefully for cases where the person is very muscular.

Body builders might often be unhealthy, but the BMI isn’t the indicator.

Anonymous 0 Comments

They are certainly unhealthy, but not because of their BMI.

BMI is a population level statistic, it is fairly meaningless when used on an individual.