Why does bmi not apply to athletes

With the increasing popularity of testosterone treatments among middle aged men, this phenomenon may apply to you or someone you know. Make sure that your health is being evaluated in a fair manner by taking the time to understand the details behind any health measurement you receive from your doctor or your workplace wellness initiative.

For additional information on Onsite Health Diagnostics please click here. Previous Next. View Larger Image. When you subtract your FFM from your total body mass, you get your fat mass. Body composition is a measurement that compares your fat mass to your total body mass, expressed as percent body fat. Body composition gives an athletic individual a more accurate profile than BMI of health status in relation to weight because you are measuring fat and not just weight.

The "gold standard" of assessing body composition is underwater weighing, which can be expensive and inconvenient. Less expensive and more convenient methods are skin fold measurements, and bioelectric impedance using a hand-held device. Of the two, skin folds provide a more accurate assessment for athletes, according to Kravitz, because bioelectric impedance tends to overestimate percent body fat in very lean individuals.

A qualified fitness professional can do a skin fold assessment for you. Desirable athletic ranges of body fat are 5 to 13 percent for men, and 12 to 22 percent for women. Optimal fitness values are 12 to 18 percent for men and 16 to 25 percent for women. However, in their study, Dr. Joshua J. Ode and colleagues from Michigan State University in East Lansing found that BMI overestimated the fatness of male and female athletes and male non-athletes, while underestimating the fatness of female non-athletes.

Belly fat fat around the abdominal organs increases the risk of diabetes, heart disease and death, whereas peripheral fat fat beneath the skin elsewhere in the body may be more innocuous, studies suggest. BMI also fails to account for differences in race, gender and age. So why is the measurement so widely used? For most people, BMI provides a "reasonable measure" of body fat, but is not accurate for athletes who weigh more because of muscle or older people who have lost height, he said. Other methods of measuring body fat also have their pros and cons.

CT and MRI scans can accurately measure body fat, but are usually very expensive. DEXA scans, normally used to measure bone density, can also be used to measure body fat, but are costly as well.