Thanks to a landmark study involving the UW Health Sports Medicine Center, physicians and coaches can evaluate the effectiveness of methods widely used to measure body composition and predict the minimum weight an athlete should maintain.
Using a four-component model that included independent assessment of bone, body fat, muscle and total body water, 53 Division-I collegiate athletes were measured, yielding a precise reading that allowed for the accurate prediction of a minimum weight. The study was conducted in response to a call by the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFSHA) mandating that all states develop a minimum-weight certification program modeled after the one established by the Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association (WIAA) in 1993. The findings appear in a recent edition of Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, the journal of the American College of Sports Medicine.
More than just a topic for exercise scientists, the issue of minimum weight prediction closely affects high school and college athletes, particularly wrestlers. In recent years, several athletes have died--including three wrestlers in a span of 33 days in 2003--after using unsafe weight loss practices in order to compete in a lower weight class. But Randy Clark, the manager of UW Health Sports Medicine's Exercise Science Laboratory and the study's first author, says the findings also have important implications for the national fight against pediatric obesity.
"Body composition has never been a more important issue than it is today," says Clark. "It's always been an important component when evaluating athletes, but it's equally important for this generation of children. This is the first generation in history that will have a shorter life expectancy than that of their parents. Reduced activity, excess body fat and excess body weight are important factors bringing about this sad fact."
For years, physicians have used the body-mass index (BMI) to roughly gauge body composition, assigning individuals a number based on a ratio between height and weight. Clark hopes that an actual measure of body composition will soon become an important component of everyone's physical exam, not just athletes.