Why does BMI tell me im overweight when im quite sporty?
You are probably quite muscular, from the many sports you play. Your build is also broad which would add weight on. You may have slightly too much fat, so i would watch what you are eating, and make healthy alternates to fatty foods. However BMI is not entirely accurate, as muscle weighs more than fat. Many footballs who take the BMI calculator are overweight, because they have a high proportion of muscle.
BMI was originally intended to evaluate the percentage of overweight and obese people in a population, and was never intended to diagnose individuals as overweight or obese. It is an approximate measure that makes assumptions on body shape and composition so that is worked well for the average person, but that does not mean it applies equally well to all people. If you are extremely tall or short, or if you have more or less muscle or bone mass than the average person, then BMI will give you a skewed measure. Thus, you do not need to be concerned with your BMI value, especially if you have reason to think you have more muscles than the average guy. If you are concerned about body fat, there are alternative measures that evaluate fat percentage more directly.
Most BMI calculators don’t take into account extra factors such as muscle mass or body type. They are usually used to measure the healthiness of a person who is only moderately active, but you appear to be very active. The BMI calculator assumes your extra weight is due to fat, not muscle, thus giving an inaccurate BMI, so you don’t have anything to worry about. If you want to get a good measure of your fitness, there are relatively cheap devices on the market that can find your fat percentage, or there are certain BMI calculators that have the option of “athletic”, which would give you a better estimate of your BMI.
