NFL Players Obese: Highlights BMI Absurdity

It is true that professional athletes who are at a high weight should have their body fat tested and not rely soley on BMI charts. But generally, your average person with a high body mass index is just plain fat. We cant keep making excuses.

I just want to say that the BMI charts are very inaccurate and cannot be relied upon. I myself am considered to be overweight at 5'9" and 185lbs, however i also have a six pack and 7 percent body fat. I think if you examined a lot of football players more closely you would find quite low body fat and realize that many (not all but many) are actually carying a healthy amount of fat.

Hey yeah i dont believe in that bmi stuff i mean i am 5'3 104 lbs and a bmi of 25? i mean yeah maybe i calculated wrong or somthing but i don't know, its amazing how many athletes are overwieght, i mean i've never considered that till i am doing a report on it this year

BMI and obesity are not realated. Obesity refers to high body fat levels, not weight level. Take for example Brian Westbrook. He is an Nfl running back who is 5"9 with 215 pounds on him. He has approx. 5 or 6% bodyfat yet is considered obese by BMI standards.
You CAN NOT take BMI charts as gospel because they dont take into account muscle which makes up for most of your wait.

Undoubtedly I am still overweight, so I'm not claiming that I don't still need to lose a fair amount of weight (30+ pounds), but when I checked myself out on a BMI calculator, I found that I was described as "obese", although several years ago when I was at a higher weight a doctor told me that I was only "moderately overweight".

I checked my current fitness level against several law enforcement guidelines and the only guideline that I missed was the timed run. Interestingly enough as a 171 pound varsity wrestler, that was the one guideline that I still couldn't reach for the President's Council on Physical Fitness.

I get frustrated because I work on my diet and have substantially increased my exercise (6-8 hours per week with a good balance of cardio and resistance training)and when I check my high school wrestling weight against the BMI calculator, I fall just below obese despite that fact that I was certified all through high school by DOCTORS at the 171 pound weight.

I try to focus more of my efforts on fitness and appearance, but it does become disheartening when despite substantial effort, you find it damn near impossible to meet standardized guidelines.

Even though I'm at 230 at 5'8", when I reach 200 most of my family and friends describe as "fit" or "trim".

This calculator is ridiculous. I am currently 6 foot 245 pounds and overweight, but I am by no means obese. I recently ran a marathon and rode in a one day 200+ mile bike race. Much of my body weight is muscle, particularly in my legs yet I am forced to pay extreme premiums on things like health and life insurance as a result of this inaccurate formula.

BMI is a tool. It only describes a person's overall "thickness". But it cannot describe of what that thickness consists.

Therefore, I don't even believe it is valuable as a statistical tool anymore. Particularly, not since the fitness craze of the 20th century, when any serious anerobic trainer can alter their BMI with increased muscle in just a matter of months.

(BMI was created mid-19th century:)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_mass_index

I thought I would chime in.... as a varcity cheerleader I was 5'6" tall and 165 pounds. a size 6 btw! and it says I was 0verwieght. You couldnt pinch and inch on me anywhere! After highschool I gained 20 pounds and moved up to a more comfortable less starved weight of 185 and a size 10 and it says I'm obese. On what sick planet is a size 10 considered obese? Now, I will be the first to say that 185 pounds does not look the same on everyone. I have seen women that weight 185 at my hieght and they are in a size 18 and up to a 22. BMI is extremely unreliable and should be banned as a method of measuring a person's health. My husband is a marine and is rock hard at 6'2 210 pounds and he is having to fight to stay in the corps due to an iffy bmi!

i am a professional athlete myself, and at 6'4 240 i am considered overweight on that bmi chart but i am by no means overweight or "fat"

BMI does not take into consideration that SOME of us are built like GORILLAS. I have a large barrel chest, 20" neck, large, long muscular arms, 46" wide shoulders, and relatively short legs (only 2 or 3 inches longer than my arms), and I'm 5'9" tall and weigh 245 lbs. And of course, the BMI will say I'm 'obese' unless my ribs are sticking out like a holocaust victim. But I'll gladly sumo-wrestle any 95lb weakling who claims I'm 'obese'. I say all of this because there are such WIDELY VARYING BODY TYPES and definitions of physical fitness between 'skinny wimps' (who easily fall within the BMI curve) and those of us for whom societal evolution USED to show favor (the 'strong man' build). It's my opinion that BMI is so inaccurate so often that it should not even be considered. Body fat percentage is the only real measurement for obesity, and even THAT has to be 'weighed' for the individual, pun intended.