Which of the following people would be most likely to get an erroneous estimate of obesity when using the BMI method of calculation?
A) Susie, an overweight 12-year-old girl who is African American
B) Barbara, an underweight 12-year-old girl who has not yet hit the adolescent growth spurt
C) Mike, an overweight 16-year-old boy who gets very little exercise
D) Jeremy, a competitive athlete with very large muscles

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

The BMI method does not consider the proportion of body weight due to fat versus muscle. Because muscle is very dense and therefore heavy tissue, when a person is highly muscular, this high proportion of muscle-to-fat can put the person in an overweight category according to BMI calculations, even though the person does not have much body fat. The BMI index is not biased according to ethnicity, gender, or age, so answers a, b, and c would not lead to faulty calculations.

Which of the Following People Would Be Most Likely to Get