Would you say that Brad's Obese?
Are any of the above Obese? I'd say not on your life, but according to the Body Mass Index (or BMI for short), each and everyone of these folks is either overweight or obese. And that right there should really show you why the BMI is a bunch of horseshit!
The BMI was designed to replace the old height/weight charts created by health insurance companies. But the question remains, is it accurate and useful in any way?
You can calculate your BMI by dividing your weight in kilograms by your height in meters squared. Or, if you'd prefer to spare yourself the mathematical trauma, just head over to The Department of Health and Human Services, they have a little calculator there that will do the math for you.
Now, according to the BMI, in order to be considered "at a healthy weight," you have to score at or under a 24. A 25 through a 29 score means that you're overweight, and a 30 or above means that your obese.
Let me start out with myself as an axample. I'm currently 5'7" tall and weigh in at a pretty ripped 181.5 pounds which puts me at a BMI of 28.4, meaning that I'm very overweight and closing in on obese. In order to reach a "healthy" BMI I would need to drop to 153 pounds. Let me do some math here, At 181.5 pounds and a body fat percentage of 8% I currently have aprox. 14.52 pounds of fat on my body. If I were to lose every ounce of fat on my body (which is not a healthy thing to do) I'd weigh 166.98 pounds (let's say 167 to make it easier.). This would still leave me with having to drop an additional 14 pounds of healthy muscle mass in order to make it to what the BMI says is healthy. Do you have any idea how emaciated and sick I'd be if I actually went through and dropped that much weight? My health would plummet!
To loosely quote legendary Strength and Conditioning Coach, Charles Staley, "Since a pound of muscle burns approximately 18 calories a day, my metabolic rate would be lowered by 513 (this would be my personal metabolic drop rather than coach Staley's) calories a day. Also, this dramatic loss of muscle would certainly profoundly reduce my strength levels. While I have more than enough strength to get through my daily activities, muscle mass and strength both gradually decline as we age. So I always look at muscle like "money in the bank:" the more I have now, the more I'll still have when I'm 60, 70, or 80 years of age. So the bottom line seems to be, if I choose to adhere to NIH's guidelines, my health and functional status will surely decline!"
A very true statement indeed. I'd personally shut my metabolism down by 513 calories a day and lose a ton of healthy, health promoting muscle and really end up screwing myself over if I decided to stick to what the BMI tells me is healthy.
In fact, basically any athlete or anyone that has any type of muscle mass would have to do the same because, if you have muscle mass on your body you are obese according to the Body Mass Index.
Now let’s also think about the large number of people who will score very acceptable numbers using the BMI, but who in fact are overfat. Despite what many people think, it’s common to find people who appear to be of normal or even low bodyweight, who in fact are overfat, because they have such low levels of muscle mass and high levels of body fat.
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As an example let’s take another person that’s my height, but they weigh an “acceptable” 150 pounds. Now, let’s put them at a 50% body fat. In other words, half of their bodyweight consists of pure lard. This person will obviously have serious risks of numerous diseases, they’ll be sickly, they’ll have premature aging, and more general maladies; yet, because of their BMI they would be considered “healthy.”
Hmmmm, this BMI thing is starting to look really screwed up don't you think?
Let's review for a second, if someone's athletic, muscular, lean, fit, and healthy; chances are they have a BMI that says that they're overweight or obese. Yet, is someone is in terrible shape, overfat, sick, and weak they can still have a BMI that is considered heathly.
I don't know about you, but I'd have to say that the whole BMI thing is a load of crap!
So, how do we know if we're at a healthy or unhealthy bodyweight? Pretty simple, go and have someone that's qualified measure your body fat percentage. Chances are that if you're at a lower bodyfat (I'd look at the 8-12 for men and the 10-15 for women, in general) you're probably living a pretty healthy and active lifestyle. You're probably not insulin resistant, you probably don't have adrenal fatigue, your hormones are probably doing pretty well, you're probably training hard and eating clean, and you're probably getting the right amounts of sleep and maximizing your overall lifestyle. It's really hard to get to those type of low percentages if you're not exercising hard, if you're eating like crap, if you're not sleeping, etc.
To quote coach Staley again, "I don’t know why this is such a hard pill to swallow— it’s bodyfat, NOT bodyweight that determines your health and functional capacity. There will never be a height/weight chart, regardless of what anyone chooses to call it, which can predict optimal bodyweight, because such charts never take a person’s muscle mass into account."
If you still think that BMI is the way to go here's a few more people that are ocnsidered overweight or obese by the BMI standards: Harrison Ford, Will Smith, Gina Carano, Christian Santos, Herschal Walker, Adrian Peterson, Vin Deisal, Dwayne "the Rock" Johnson, anyone in the NFL, anyone in the NBA, anyone in Major League Baseball, Jon "Bones" Jones, really anyone in any weightclass sport that's above the welterweight division, etc. etc. etc. I could go on, but I think I've made my point. Talk with you all later.
Yours in strength and health,
Brett Stepan
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