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by vilmosi 4013 days ago
>>> The word overweight means to have excess fat, specifically.

Dictionary definition "above a weight considered normal or desirable."

The WHO definition "a BMI greater than or equal to 25 is overweight"

Not sure what definition you use, most gym-heads are technically overweight.

But discussing semantics is not the topic here.

1 comments

Not being able to understand the difference between excess muscle and fat is not semantics.

BMI is a tool applied to populations, used on individuals it can be very inaccurate, which is why nobody does it outside of blogs and magazines.

The term "overweight" does not differentiate between muscle and fat, plain and simple. You're wrong.
> The term "overweight" does not differentiate between muscle and fat, plain and simple. You're wrong.

You're wrong. The typical diagnostic method for overweight and obesity (BMI) does not differentiate between muscle and fat, because mechanisms that do are too expensive/complex for the use, but the term, in fact, does.

At their most basic, the words “overweight” and “obesity” are ways to describe having too much body fat. [0]

Overweight and obesity are defined as abnormal or excessive fat accumulation that may impair health. [1]

[0] http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/obesity-prevention-source/obesit...

[1] http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs311/en/

Both your quotes are followed by BMI index, which technically doesn't take into account fat/muscle ration by definition.

But I do concede, overweight in that context does refer to excess fat.