Essay on Physical Fitness/Wellness/Health Related Topic

Personally, I am quite interested in learning about Body Composition. The reason for
this is probably because I have had a lot of experiences in the past when it comes to being
labeled as obese and fat, by both friends and family. Because of these experiences, I did a lot of
diets and exercises in order for me to slim down and lose weight. However, despite my
appearances looking relatively normal, such as my physique, according to the doctors, I was still
considered overweight. I dieted and exercised a for weeks until I was considered “normal”
according to the BMI scale. Now, ever since it was brought up during my PE classes, I was
wondering how you can consider someone overweight or underweight. Is it based off their
appearances? Or is it solely based off their BMI.

From the gist of it, I learned that Body Composition is one of the more “accurate ways”
of determining whether a person is to be considered healthy. The reason for this is because
unlike the BMI scale, which only takes into the consideration a person’s weight relative to ones’
height, the Body Composition of a person determines the percentages of fat and tissue in a
person’s body. With that being said, I have come to a realization that it is possible for a person
to be calculated as overweight, but physique wise, looks very toned and muscular. This is
possibly due to the fact that muscles are denser than fat, which adds to a person’s weight.
Examples of people that were mentioned during class that fall under this category are Arnold
Schwarzenegger and Ronnie Coleman.

Despite knowing this simple explanation, I still want to explore this topic. The reason for
this is because I feel that there is more to it than just that simple explanation. I think that
perhaps through learning and exploring more about Body Composition, I could be able to
understand more about how the “normal” body weight was determined and decided upon.
Maybe in most cases, it had something to do with the ratio between height and weight (hence,
the BMI scale); however, studying Body Composition I think will help me understand better
these ratios that were assessed and maybe try and apply it to myself as well (if possible).

Aside from trying to understand the computations of muscular people being overweight
or even obese, I also want to explore the reason as to why that underweight people, according
to the BMI scale, can also be considered healthy according to the Body Composition. I have
heard that there were cases of models being considered underweight on the BMI scale;
however, in terms of appearances and physique, they don’t seem to be unhealthy at all.

All-in-all, my interest in Body Composition lies with the fact that two separate scaling
systems, both made up by scientists, can have differing interpretations of results. The reason,
however, that I am more interested in the Body Composition more than the BMI scale is
because I personally believe that the Body Composition is a more accurate way of determining
a person’s physical health, and should be the sole standard for assessment.