Shawndme7 has a thread discussing "lbs per inch" and some people think it is fundamentally flawed. I found another interesting index, Body Mass Index(BMI) from National Institute of Health : "Body mass index (BMI) is measure of body fat based on height and weight that applies to both adult men and women. " This website has a calculator. Using data providing by Shawndme7, BMI of some NBA Players are as following: Shark--------34.1 divac--------25.3 Bradely-----23 Butler-------26.3 Dunleavy---25.3 Ming---------26.3 So according Standard of national institue of health, Bradely is normal, Ming is overweighted, and Shark is obese!
So, just out of curiousity, why didn't you post this in that other thread instead of starting a new one?
I do biomedical research in obesity, so I can tell you this much... BMI is only used (or I should say reliable) for non-athletes and non-body builders. The simple reason is that it doesn't take into account that most of the added weight for these people is muscle; while for the rest of us, it's probably fat or a mix of both. For athletes you would probably need to look at both body fat percentage in context of BMI. To sum it up: BMI is useful in predicting cardiovascular disease, diabetes, etc as an obesity index for the average person but less so for the serious athletes.
Compare Hakeem's BMI back in 84 to Ming's BMI now. I think they look simular... I'm sure when Ming is around 30 he will be like Hakeem.
