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Very few athletes are actually overweight. The Olympics are on TV right now. How many of the competitors look overweight to you? Even in America only a tiny fraction of the population is really "buff"; they have a negligible impact on the overall percentage.



My point is that those competitors ARE classified as overweight by BMI.

Don't forget that muscle is denser than fat - a flabby 169lb is going to have more body volume than a fit 169lb.

Any muscular sprinting/non-endurance athlete is probably going to be classified as overweight.

Here's something to think about: spindly Usain Bolt is 6'4" and 207lbs - which puts him at just over edge of "overweight" which is 25 BMI.

https://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/educational/lose_wt/BMI/bmi...


No the vast majority of Olympians really aren't classified as overweight. Check your data again. It's really only in a few sports which require short bursts of high power where you frequently see athletes muscular enough to technically fall into the "overweight" category.




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