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Aren't people who exercise (bodybuilding) generally considered overweight (defined as having a too high weight for a given height?) I noticed the same as you po

by shishy 5y ago

Aren't people who exercise (bodybuilding) generally considered overweight (defined as having a too high weight for a given height?) I noticed the same as you pointed out but figured that might help explain some of that difference

dpark 5y ago
No. You have to have a ton of muscle to flip the bmi scale into overweight. Certainly professional bodybuilders will do that. Casual bodybuilders generally don’t. The set of bodybuilders who have enough muscle to put them into the overweight category is a tiny portion of the population. There is a larger portion of the population who has a lot of muscle and a lot of fat, but that’s still pretty small.
- shishy 5y ago
  fair enough! those communities always seems bigger when you're surrounded by them... :)
- s1artibartfast 5y ago
  BMI is just a very rough approximation used to fit body fat. Any amount of muscle can slip someone into the overwight category if they are already close. For a 5-10 male, the difference between dead center normal BMI and pre-obese is 20 lbs, not a crazy amount for a casual but consistent weightlifter. BMI 'works' because it just looks at the total population, and doest care if it doesn't fit edge cases.
  - dpark 5y ago
    > Any amount of muscle can slip someone into the overwight category if they are already close. Yeah, but that’s hardly the muscle at fault. If someone has 20lb of extra fat and 10lb of extra muscle, it seems a lot more honest to say the fat is why the person’s BMI is high. To be clear, BMI is definitely a very “rough and dirty” estimate. Certainly there are healthy people with a BMI classified as overweight.
austhrow743 5y ago
Like 1% of people who exercise are bodybuilders.
- redisman 5y ago
  And the performance enhancing drugs and bulks are not exactly known to be great for their hearts. See Rich Piana for example
voldacar 5y ago
Massive roided up bodybuilders are like 0.1% of the population max. And those guys should be probably more worried about the effects of steroids on the heart than having too much body mass
smileysteve 5y ago
When the survey is BMI, then yes, individuals outside the standard height and with greater than average muscle mass will fall in the overweight range. But, when considering the population rather than the individual, these outliers become insignificant.

by shishy 5y ago

dpark 5y ago

No. You have to have a ton of muscle to flip the bmi scale into overweight. Certainly professional bodybuilders will do that. Casual bodybuilders generally don’t. The set of bodybuilders who have enough muscle to put them into the overweight category is a tiny portion of the population. There is a larger portion of the population who has a lot of muscle and a lot of fat, but that’s still pretty small.

shishy 5y ago
fair enough! those communities always seems bigger when you're surrounded by them... :)
s1artibartfast 5y ago
BMI is just a very rough approximation used to fit body fat. Any amount of muscle can slip someone into the overwight category if they are already close. For a 5-10 male, the difference between dead center normal BMI and pre-obese is 20 lbs, not a crazy amount for a casual but consistent weightlifter. BMI 'works' because it just looks at the total population, and doest care if it doesn't fit edge cases.
- dpark 5y ago
  > Any amount of muscle can slip someone into the overwight category if they are already close. Yeah, but that’s hardly the muscle at fault. If someone has 20lb of extra fat and 10lb of extra muscle, it seems a lot more honest to say the fat is why the person’s BMI is high. To be clear, BMI is definitely a very “rough and dirty” estimate. Certainly there are healthy people with a BMI classified as overweight.

austhrow743 5y ago

Like 1% of people who exercise are bodybuilders.

redisman 5y ago
And the performance enhancing drugs and bulks are not exactly known to be great for their hearts. See Rich Piana for example

voldacar 5y ago

Massive roided up bodybuilders are like 0.1% of the population max. And those guys should be probably more worried about the effects of steroids on the heart than having too much body mass

smileysteve 5y ago

When the survey is BMI, then yes, individuals outside the standard height and with greater than average muscle mass will fall in the overweight range. But, when considering the population rather than the individual, these outliers become insignificant.