On Mon, 23 Nov 2009, Alan Rudy wrote:
> Without in any way dismissing the epidemic of obesity in the US (hell, I
> live in MI, a state that's among the poster children for it!), according
> to the insurance industry I was morbidly obese at 5'10" and 210 lbs - my
> doctor showed me the graph of normal/acceptable height-weight
> expectations - even though I had about 10-12% body fat at the time...
> damn bulk from sports...
FWIW, this is a common misuse of the BMI. It specifically says it doesn't work on athletic builds. For that, you have to use the much more time consuming caliper method. 90% of pro athletes produce this nonsense result if judged by the chart.
I had a similar problem, and used to wonder if this was a factor in the stats, but I've come to think it probably doesn't play much of a role.
Michael