BMI is a joke it is obsolete and does not apply to people that are fit and heavy. I am 6'3 and 223 lbs my BMI is 27.9 almost obese? The number might mean something if it took in to account body fat % and fat weight, my most recent fat test was 2 weeks ago and a skin fold test put me at 13% I also have a 48" chest with a 34 inch waist. I am very fit I lift 5 days per week and do 5 cardio sesions a week How can my BMI show me at borderline obese??

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BMI has its limitations but is certainly not useless.
For total health control I can recommend further exploration at http://www.ckbody.com as the "Portal to your Health"

Enjoy!
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I agree with the first commenter, BB. (BMI is certainly misleading, not only in terms of race but tribal differences--particularly in a population as pluralistic as the United States. Although I grew up in the U.S., for years I had the typical fat to muscle/bone density ratio for members of my father's tribe in West Africa--"lean, mean & muscle to bone"--I was always being referred to as skinny (later thin, despite my obvious bone density & muscle, in my adult years) even though I had always been strong, not a weakling, & from as early as the age of ten, could lift at least 15 pounds in excess of my own body weight, effortlessly. I was a sprinter and sprint cyclist for years & had excellent lung power from years of chopping wood/hauling, lifting, stooping/bending daily year round often in hot, humid temperatures of up to 100 degrees, and later walking up to five hours a day for a period of about five years. Perhaps, in terms of fat percentage, I thin, but that is deceiving, generally weighed more than most of my American peers who appeared to be of the same size visually and in clothing size. At 24, I took a BMI, with a total wgt. of 138 lbs., 118 lbs. was skeletal weight, 9.75% was body fat (a figure which, if stated on its own, usually elicited comments about how I was under the minimum for women). Which group of women? It was just that I was of a West African body-type, one generation removed. I was told I had excellent lung power, which I already knew; my heart rate was above average, and blood pressure were ideal for all aerobic sports. Like most tests & test results, the BMI is Eurocentric--catering to a particular ethnic group & most probably a particularly class--of women & is therefore misleading much of the time. Even though I had no ribs showing, had considerable definition to my physique from years of chopping wood, etc. & being a cyclist, women who were clearly just skin & bone, with little fat on them were regularly calling me skinny. Oftentimes, before it was in vogue for women to have biceps or strong quads or hamstrings--unless they were professional athletes or professional dancers--there seemed to be an obssession with my physique. And overweight women, clearly in need of a gym or truly obese had a field day. Fit & perfectly healthy people, physically capable & strong have been being tyrannized by fat, overweight, lazy people (often on one diet or another) for years. Now they're appropriating tests like the BMI to further confound & confuse the issue. I am glad to see that a discussion questioning the veracity of the BMI tests has begun, so that maybe someday this tyranny of women who are naturally thin, or whose weight is genetically (or ethnically) comprised of bone dense and muscle with naturally low body fat. There are even regional differences, right here in the States, which I didn't realize until I left the eastern seaboard for the midwest, where there were large communities of tall & lean Scandinavians, not the typical English, Irish, Italian, Eastern European and Asian body types that I had grown accustomed to seeing in the Northeast. For me, having grown up in an area of the country in the South, where it was not uncommon for women to proudly carry 35lbs. (or more) in excess weight, while extolling its virtues, when I met the spear side of my family, it answered a lot of questions.

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