I can believe this, but I want to pose a sanity check: BMI is simply a comparison of your weight to your height. Meaning you can get a high BMI (obesity) either by being very fat... or very muscular. Seems to me soldiers toting 80-90 lb. gear kits might score a high BMI just due to muscle mass. Is this accounted for?
Our orderly room staff were told not to process paperwork for the caliper test because the Support Group didn't have enough staff for it. The orderly room would only process paperwork for the caliper test and if that failed, the body tank displacement test if someone was facing a discharge and contested it.
We had a few guys who would fail every weigh-in because they were ripped. Some looked like they had zero fat on them. It wasn't unheard of for some guys to spend more on tailoring for their service dress uniforms than the uniforms even cost. We had one guy who had the largest service dress jacket available that had to be cut to taper to down to like a 32" waist. Before tapering, it looked like a pallet cover or a giant baggy bell swirling around him. The pants were similar: small waste, large thighs and calves. Once his shirt, jacket, and pants were tailored, it looked perfect but if you stood behind him formation, it was surprising to see just how much his uniform had to modded.
Eventually AF Personnel Center changed the regs to allow for Commander's discretion because it was so ridiculous.
“Meaning you can get a high BMI (obesity) either by being very fat... or very muscular.”
Exactly.
I once saw a truck driver having a hard time getting through his physical. His BMI was showing him as being extremely obese. Only problem was he was a bodybuilder who had about 3% body fat. It took him two days to get his physical straightened out.