Maria Fabrizio hide caption The scale has never been a friend to Mana Mostatabi. Even back in high school, when she ran a quick 100m on the varsity track team, her BMI – a ratio of weight to height – put her in the overweight category. “My dad always joked that I should be a wrestler,” Mostatabi says due to her build.
Many professional athletes flunk BMI tests. Some are considered obese despite their fitness, and many doctors say it isn’t a helpful metric to focus on. “BMI is a very crude measure,” says Dr.
Richard Joseph , a physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital who specializes in metabolic health. “It doesn’t tell me much about your underlying health,” he says. People can be a normal weight but have low muscle mass and high body fat, while others have higher body weight but are muscular and lean.
That’s why Mostatabi has found a new tool – a body composition scan – that measures her body fat and muscle mass, which are two key metrics of health. “It’s very affirming,” Mostatabi says. Over the last year, she has lost ten pounds of body fat and also gained several pounds of muscle.
“This actually gives me information,” to track progress. “It really is motivating,” she says. Body composition scans are becoming an increasingly popular way to gauge health and there are lots of different kinds.
An MRI ( magnetic resonance imaging ) is considered the gold standard, but it’s not practical for most people given the expense and access to.
