Body mass index, a long-time indicator of a person’s health, is drawing criticism from athletes and health-care professionals.
Colten Sloan trains five days a week for three hours a day. He is Plains Cree, 6-foot-3 and roughly 335 pounds.
He sounds like he’d be considered healthy, but by body mass index, he’s not.
“I would probably be in the morbidly obese (category). Like, ‘You’re going to die’ inside of the BMI,” said Sloan, who is Canada’s first Indigenous strongman.
“And then the training isn’t just lifting weights like we do conditioning work and everything,” he said of his workouts as a professional strongman.
In addition to that, Sloan works as a carpenter, which keeps him moving and lifting all day long.
“So yeah, I really disagree with BMI, just because someone being my size and mostly muscle (would be) labelled as morbidly obese, but I’m not,” said Solan.
Many health professionals agree that BMI doesn’t tell the whole story.
“Over half of the NFL would be classified as having obesity on the basis of BMI. We know that,” said Yoni Freedhoff, associate professor of family medicine at the University of Ottawa.
“BMI is a measure of bigness. Bigness doesn’t tell us whether a person is healthy. Bigness also doesn’t tell us what their lifestyle is like or what their other medical conditions and social determinants of health are.”
A series of studies is now pointing to a different kind of measurement, the body roundness index, which incorporates measuring a person’s waist and hips, saying it may be more accurate.
But still, experts urge caution.
“At the end of the day, we are simply looking at statistical risk levels,” Freedhoff said.
Sloan agreed.
“We’re conditioned to think if you don’t have six-pack abs and this and that, you’re not fit, you’re not healthy, which is so inaccurate. And I think the BMI definitely played into a big part of that misconception on health and wellness,” he said.
On its website, Health Canada says BMI is just one part of health risk assessment, and other factors need to be considered as well.