The Modern Industry
Recently I was asked to put a blog post together based on BMI, and it basically took me on a journey through my 26 years in the fitness industry. During this time BMI has experienced some super highs, and some damning lows, and has at times settled in a wide-range of positions in between. Today I am giving it a moment to shine by discussing where I feel it currently sits…
In the modern fitness industry we are living in an increasingly data-driven world. One filled with initials and acronyms, one that has become more and more difficult to navigate for the general health-conscious individual.
As a fitness professional I often say to my students that the industry you enter today requires a lot more baseline knowledge in terms of the wider-reaching data-centric world than the fitness industry I joined in the year 2000! Back then we dealt with hot topics such as ‘will eating carbs after 6pm automatically make me fat?’, and ‘if I lift weights will I get bulky?’. In many ways we have come a long way…in others, not so much.
Knowledge is key
You need a little more knowledge in a lot more areas purely because the general public are inundated with more, and will ask you to explain it!
For example HRV (Heart Rate Variability), BP (Blood Pressure), RHR (Resting Heart Rate) , BF% (Bodyfat%), REM (Rapid Eye Movement – not the band!) to name but a few of the measurements.
People are hit with a slew of data upon waking in the morning and the upshot is that we need to understand at least a little bit about each of them in order to protect our credibility, and offer solid guidance to our numbers-thirsty client base. In truth, given the sheer volume of data that is available, it begs the question as to whether we actually need it all, or if some of it simply exists…
In answer to this question, at least for more general gym-goers, it is the latter. I live in a world where general health improvement will see marked betterment for the vast majority of these measurements rather than any one of them being the actual goal. No one ever approached me to improve their HRV as a primary goal. But most certainly a programme that saw a great many other health markers improve would also enhance this number as well.
Case in point – people discuss their strain score frequently, but no one really comes to the gym with a plan set around reducing this in and of itself. Typically it will improve with enhanced lifestyle management and consistent exercise, as a by-product.
So I ask again…do we need it? Or does it just exist.
Body Mass Index
Lost in the shuffle has been one of the original initial-based measurements that largely finds itself rendered ‘nonsense’ by the modern fitness professional. That is, (drum-roll please) – BMI.
BMI stands for Body Mass Index and it essentially considers your height and your scale weight and offers a reference score. It states, based on your unique ratio of height and weight whether you are underweight, severely obese, or anything in between. The NHS provide a BMI calculator for quick calculations.
Is it a perfect, scrutiny-proof measure? Absolutely not. Might it be useful in specific situations? I don’t see why not. I would suggest that just because it isn’t new and shiny doesn’t mean we cannot still use it in some instances.
Where it Falls Down
As fitness professionals we are often very quick to tell you why BMI is not a useful, or remotely reasonable measurement to use, and this is generally due to its lack of specificity as it relates to the exact composition of your body.
Let’s take two individuals who are exactly the same height and scale weight. They will be scored the same on the BMI scale. Yet what I am not telling you is that one of these individuals has 30% bodyfat and the other has 10%. Clearly this is where BMI shows its lack of scientific credibility. It is hard to argue in its favour with a result this blatantly misleading. One of these people is far healthier than the other, and their disease-risk is hugely decreased.
So let’s explore in a little more detail the measurement of body composition shall we?
Body composition is a measure of the specific formation of your own unique makeup. It relays the volume of fat, muscle mass, water and bone tissue your body comprises, and this is a far more specific measure of one’s health, and can be a better indicator or potential health conditions you may be at risk of.
Body composition is measured in the main by either skinfold callipers, or by bioelectrical impedance. If you have been pinched during a gym induction then you were measured by callipers. If you used a scale that gave you feedback on a host of different internal measures then you utilised bio-impedance.
Is BMI is irrelevant?
No, far from it. If I’m being completely transparent, this is something I have been guilty of feeling in the past. You see, in fitness as with many other walks of life, we tend to exist in a bubble. We tend to think that everyone shares our interest and enthusiasm for the gym. More importantly, we think everyone follows a consistent exercise habit. We also exist in an echo-chamber where a lot of what we think and feel is reverberated, making us feel like the world exists to mirror our image and habits.
So for every person who holds a gym membership (suggested to be around 19% in the UK) there are 4 others who do not. And for every person who attends exercises at least 3 x per week (a number we see slip to 12%) there are nearly nine more who do not.
As a fitness professional we typically would suggest that if you regularly weight train the BMI measurements might be skewed in a negative manner towards you, but this still leaves a vast percentage of the population for whom BMI might be a reasonable measure.
A non-exercising individual is more commonly found than an exercising one, and this is where BMI gains relevancy and credibility. Where we are quick to dismiss BMI as irrelevant due to the fact it doesn’t consider the amount of muscle on our frames, we need to be just as quick to remember that most people do not frequently train their muscle mass, and for the vast majority of the people we meet this means BMI is actually a fine measure.
How can we quickly, and reasonably accurately assess the health of a nation, whose population are somewhere between 80-90% sedentary? We need to make this as quick, painless, and almost routine as possible. No fancy kit, no wearable tech, and no long, drawn-out appointments.
We do not have the ability to get these people onto our bio-impedance scales. And pinching is out of the question! Don’t try it, you’ll get in trouble!
So, we are left with a measurement that can be taken almost as a by-product. You visit the doctor and get put on the scales, and we have a reasonably accurate, non-invasive, time-sensitive measure that will likely correlate with predictive health status.
Is BMI perfect?
No.
Do we need it to be? No, I don’t think so.
If nothing else a quick trip to the doctor might highlight an increasing BMI score. This could be enough of an impetus to buy the trainers, book the appointment, join the gym, and start to become more consciously aware of plethora of other data we have available to interpret.
And that’s where you come in…
