# Does high body fat index person take longer to starve?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-high-body-fat-index-person-take-longer-to-starve/676763>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [December 19, 2013, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-high-body-fat-index-person-take-longer-to-starve/676763 "2013-12-19T21:54:49Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\
**Post date:** [December 22, 2013, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-high-body-fat-index-person-take-longer-to-starve/676763/21 "2013-12-22T15:32:33Z")

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> [@Simplicio](#):
>
> It’s pretty well known that people with a lot of muscle will have high BMIs. It’s kinda silly to think the military, which has a high proportion of very muscular people applying, would be unaware of the fact.
> 
> The army standards for obesity are based on body-fat percentage, not BMI, for exactly this reason.

Many athletes with a low percent of body fat are BMI 25 to 29.9 (“overweight”). _Most_ with a BMI 30 and over are _not_ lean and while muscle mass is part of their BMI it highly likely is NOT all of it. Yes, there are some _highly_ muscled athletes who hit over 30 with hardly any of it fat (The Arnold in his prime had a BMI of 31.5 for example) but they are the exceptions. Most fit athletes have a BMI under 30. (And football linemen are the exception that proofs the rule; they are physically fit and they are commonly obese.)

It’s true that young adults are being [rejected](http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/Army-Raises-Bar-on-Recruitment-Standards--211154521.html) from military service because they are too heavy.

> [@](#):
>
> the biggest problem of all? Obesity. “Ready, Willing and Unable” found 27 percent of young Americans are too overweight or obese to join the military. It’s an even grimmer picture in California. A 2011 report titled “Unfit to Fight – a Report on California” found 42-percent of young Californians are too overweight or obese to join the armed forces. Years ago, Lawson said, that wasn’t as big of an issue.

It[isn’t](http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/12/06/frum.obesity.military/) like the expectation is crazy.

> [@](#):
>
> Military weight standards are not especially demanding. Male recruits younger than 27 must have a body-fat percentage below 26%. That’s twice the fat you’d expect in a young man in peak physical condition.
> 
> Yet even the relaxed 26% standard is too stringent for modern America. More than 9 million young Americans – about one in four – are too overweight to enlist, a recent report found.
> 
> So the military has adjusted its expectations.
> 
> Otherwise qualified young men with body fat of 30% (the boundary between “overweight” and “obese”) can be conditionally recruited if they can perform a basic workout and then commit to reduce their weight within one year.

One has to _wonder_ if that woman’s perception that her stepdaught is all muscle is all that accurate.

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