https://matteocampagna.com/en/registry/health/archers-body-mass-index Changes to this claim in Matteo Campagna's evidence registry: its status, its year-by-year history, revisions of the page. en-gb https://matteocampagna.com/en/registry/health/archers-body-mass-indexIt depends on who is measured, which is why the status is contested. In samples from East and Southeast Asia the mean body mass index almost always sits between 24 and 26, at the top of the normal range or just above it: 24.2 and 25.0 in twenty Korean high-school archers, 26.2 in twelve young Malaysians competing nationally, 24.1 and 24.4 in thirty-one Korean elite archers, 23.6 against 19.1 in twenty Malaysian teenagers compared with sedentary peers of similar height. The largest international sample, 51 elite archers from 22 countries, has a mean index of 24.6 with 45.1% overweight or above, but weight and height were reported by the archers themselves. On the other side, 33 Indian archers at national and international level stand at 22.6 and 22.4, with body fat estimated from skinfolds at an unusually low 5.3%, and 30 professional compound archers in Cyprus at 22.98; in an Indian comparison published in a questionable venue, 93 national-level archers actually sit below peers who do not shoot, and in five young Chinese archers competing nationally, also in a questionable venue, average weight and height fall within the normal range. There is also a limit that applies to all of them: body mass index does not tell muscle from fat, and where body composition is measured the picture changes from one sample to the next, from 16% fat in the Korean elite archers with about thirty kilos of muscle to 26.7% in the Malaysian teenagers. What the data allow us to say is that in many groups of archers the index sits at the top of the normal range; they do not say that the weight is fat, or that it is a health problem, because no study has linked it to injury or illness.claim:bmi-arcieri-sopra-norma:revision:2026-10-12:4Mon, 12 Oct 2026 08:00:00 GMT https://matteocampagna.com/en/registry/health/archers-body-mass-index#storiaThe first figure in the series concerns five Chinese boys of Xibo ethnicity, aged 15 to 17, with good results in national competitions: 63.9 kilograms for 174.7 centimetres and 11% body fat, a lean build within the normal range. They are five people, body mass index is not reported, the standard deviation for fat is not plausible and the proceedings appear in a venue with questionable editorial standards, which in this registry does not decide a status: the figure stays as context and the question has not yet been studied.claim:bmi-arcieri-sopra-norma:history_entry:2026-08-31:2015Mon, 31 Aug 2026 08:00:00 GMT https://matteocampagna.com/en/registry/health/archers-body-mass-indexclaim:bmi-arcieri-sopra-norma:new_claim:2026-07-13:contestatoMon, 13 Jul 2026 08:00:00 GMT