Ilona Maher Roasts A Body-Shamer, And It’s Amazing

Many athletes measure their body composition to maintain their ideal body composition for their sport (and every athlete is different), which can affect their performance and health. Often, losing body fat while maintaining or increasing lean body mass (including muscle, bone, and water makeup) is attractive to many athletes. However, since muscle is denser than fat, gaining more muscle means higher weight and a higher BMI, which often places athletes in the ‘overweight’ or sometimes ‘obese’ category, which is often why BMI is inaccurate.

If Maher is 85% lean, she has about 15% body fat, which is reported to be normal for female athletes (14-20% body fat). In comparison, the average non-runner woman may have 25-31% body fat.