For an -average- male how will a bmi of 22 roughly translate into a body fat percentage?

Answer 1

You can't translate BMI into body fat percentage. One of the biggest limitations of BMI is that it doesn't take into account muscle mass. BMI is calculated using height and weight ONLY. So a 250 pound, 6'2" Schwarzenegger has an identical BMI to that of a 250 pound, 6'2" couch potato. While Arnie might be 4% body fat, the couch potato could have 40% or higher body fat. As this shows, you can't estimate body fat from BMI. While this is a limitation of BMI, it's still an acceptable means for defining overweight and obese levels. No construct, no standard of obesity is going to label everyone who is obese as obese without also labeling a few non-obese people as such. While including percent body fat in our definition of obesity would be nice, the problem is that few people actually know their body fat percentage, and accurate means of testing are expensive and difficult to administer. On the other hand, height and weight are easy to determine with just a scale and a measuring stick. The Schwazenegger/couch potato instance was clearly an extreme case. The vast majority of 6'2" 250 pound males are truly obese- competitive male body builders and athletes make up a very, very small percentage of the overall population. BMI is capable of correctly labeling the obese in the vast majority of cases. If you do happen to think yourself such a muscular person yet still weigh a lot, have your body fat percentage assessed.