[sharkmerry]

Is this solely done based on BMI? Some of you may know that BMI can be wildly inaccurate. (this guy is technically obese on BMI scale - https://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=153207891)

I wonder if we would find better connections between disease and "weight" with body fat % or similar measure.

[streptomycin]

Yes, BMI overestimates obesity in bodybuilders, but there aren't many bodybuilders, so that has roughly no impact on population statistics.

On a population level, BMI actually underestimates obesity https://abcnews.go.com/Health/Wellness/bmi-underestimates-pr... so the real obesity percentage is probably even worse than 42.4%

[flying_kangaroo]

The way I've heard it, BMI can be inaccurate on the individual level, but it was created to analyze populations more broadly, where it can be a somewhat useful heuristic. I would guess athletes with obese BMIs are a small enough portion of the population to not make too much of a change to the population-wide statistics.

[sam0x17]

Yeah I doubt the obesity pandemic in the U.S. is really just a bunch of bros have had sick gains.

[Falling3]

Beat to the reply by a few other people on the accuracy across populations. The only thing I'll add is that BMI is a much more accessible measure. The more accuracy we want, the more invasive and expensive it is to collect. Just about anyone who's ever been seen by a healthcare provider has their height and weight taken so it's a very easy metric to capture across an entire population.

[raspasov]

Most likely done based on BMI because most methods of measuring body fat are not easy to access and have significant variability. I agree with you that BMI is not the best method, but it's probably the best default because it's easy to measure.

[wiremine]

I've read in a few places that BMI can be inaccurate too. Wondering if anyone has any good articles or perspective that dig into this some more:

1. Is it a "good enough" metric? 2. Is it "wildly inaccurate" for most, or just some outliers?

[twelve40]

If you are ripped af and most of your body mass is muscles then yes your high BMI can be safely ignored. For everyone else, it's definitely a "good enough" reflection of their bad habits.

[JshWright]

BMI can be inaccurate for an individual. That's because it was never designed as a metric to be applied to individuals, but rather to populations. This page is an example of BMI being used appropriately.

[dragonwriter]

> I've read in a few places that BMI can be inaccurate too

BMI can't be inaccurate, though conclusions drawn naively from it can be.