More than half of the players on the Denver Broncos and Seattle Seahawks are obese—if you rely on just their body mass index, or BMI, that is. We calculated those scores based on the heights and weights of players listed on the teams’ official websites, and 72 of 127 players had a BMI of 30 or above, the cutoff for obesity established by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Eight of them had a BMI of 40 or more, which technically makes them “morbidly obese.”
But here’s the rub: While no doubt some of those fellas could stand to lose a few pounds, BMI is not a reliable indicator of body fatness for highly trained athletes such as those playing in the Super Bowl on Sunday. For one thing, muscle weighs more than fat. So their high BMI scores are probably due more to big muscles than big belly rolls. That’s why professional sports teams sometimes turn to expensive equipment, like dual energy X-ray absorptiometry, to measure body fat
But for most of the rest of us watching the game from our couches, BMI is still a reliable and easy way to measure our fatness, and to provide important clues about our overall health, according to a study published last year in the journal Obesity Research & Clinical Practice. It found that BMI not only accurately reflected body fat in most people, it also correlated well with coronary risk factors such as LDL cholesterol and blood glucose levels. You can check your body mass index with CR’s BMI calculator.
Read more about diet and exercise, say the experts at Consumer Reports.
Still, it can pay to use other simple measures of body fatness, too. Simplest of all: measure your waist. In women, a waist of 35 inches or greater is cause for concern; in men, it's 40 inches. Wrap a measuring tape around your bare abdomen at about the level of your navel. Stand straight, and don't suck in your gut. Relax, then measure after exhaling.
The waist-to-hip ratio can differentiate belly fat from hip and bottom fat, but it's harder to calculate. Measure your hip circumference by pulling the tape around the widest point (but not so much that it compresses your skin). Divide the waist measurement by the hip measurement. A healthy waist-to-hip ratio is 0.8 or less for women and 0.9 or less for men.
If you need to improve your scores, read our reviews of scales, treadmills, ellipticals, spin bikes, rowing machines, and activity trackers such as the Fitbit One.
“In fact, it might not hurt one bit to watch at least the first half of The Game while using one of those exercisers,” Marvin M. Lipman, M.D., Consumer Reports’ chief medical adviser, said.
—Doug Podolsky
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