Can BMI be wrong if you are muscular?
Considering that BMI does not account for body composition, it can most definitely be wrong because it does not differentiate between the amount of fat and muscle. This is due to the simple fact that muscle is heavier than fat; resulting in a number of athletes and otherwise healthy people may have been assessed as overweight by the BMI scale
Since BMI simply compares weight and height, it has no way of including important data such as volume or density of muscle mass in proportion to body fat (lean individuals that perhaps weigh “a lot” but due to muscle, not fat), leading to some people wrongly scoring a high BMI that indicates them belonging to the overweight or even obese range on the BMI scale
However, as we further elaborate on in the article “Can BMI be misleading?“, anyone who has scored high on the BMI should also measure their waistline since this is one of the most surefire ways of determining if you’re overweight and in the risk zone of lifestyle diseases or not
Below are the circumference thresholds that may indicate an increased risk of disease linked with obesity:
Women
Increased risk if 80 cm/ 31,5 inches
Greatly increased risk if 88cm/ 34,6 inches
Men
Increased risk if 94 cm/ 37 inches
Greatly increased risk if 102cm/ 40,15 inches
However, the BMI scale also penalize you if you are tall, so in order to assess if the BMI score is correct you should assess your waist to height ratio by simply aiming to keep the circumference of your waist to under half of your height
