BMI or Body Mass Index is based on weight alone.
Just weight.
- It makes no distinctions for age.
- It makes no distinctions for muscle mass
- it doesn't even distinguish between male and female.
most of the athletes in the peak of condition are, according to BMI standards, at risk. This is understandable because athletes are often quite muscular but BMI scoring does not allow for the percentage of muscle mass and muscle weighs 4 times heavier than fat. BMI scores render many athletes even those with very low bodyfat levels as "obese".
BMI is totally meaningless for me. At 18, eating only 1 meal a day for 6 months, it made me damn weak to achieve this BMI crap. Read more about resistance training vs traditional cardio.
Traditional cardio loses weight undiscriminatingly, this means, the weight you lose, some 25% will be from your valuable muscles. In the long run, if you only do lots of cardio, you will lack muscle mass. This explains why professional long distance runners are all skinny. Compare that to the sprinters that has explosive power in their run. They are huge.
Both have very similar fat ratio, but contrasting BMI.