My Secret Connection to Ilona Maher and BMI

A month after the 2024 Paris Olympic Games and Ilona Maher — the American rugby player who famously fired back at a comment on social media that she (Ilona Maher) must have a body mass index (BMI) of 30 which would categorize her as “obese” — is all the body acceptance rage right now. And as someone who has been in the “overweight” BMI bucket her entire life, I’M HERE FOR IT! But my personal connection to this story goes even deeper.

25 years ago, Ilona Maher was a toddler, I was playing rugby in college, and the US Army rejected me because I was “overweight”. It shattered me and I haven’t told anyone the truth about what happened that day.

Until now.

It was 1999. I was a sophomore in college. I had no familial financial support. The $174 I started university with was long gone. My loans and grants only went so far and now I was fighting for my life to stay in school.

The Army offered a solution — my college education in exchange for years of service. Since I was a rugby player and in ROTC, I was pretty fit so the fitness requirements of joining the Army didn’t intimidate me. I didn’t see any other options.

I talked to Sergeant Reed who I knew through ROTC to set the wheels in motion. His angular face, sunken eyes, and grayish complexion lit up when my Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery results came back only one point shy of a perfect score. “Jackpot” was written all over his face.

“You can do any job in the Army, except infantry and combat arms,” he told me over greasy burgers on the way home from the testing site. His treat. “A recruiter’s dream,” he said as he dipped a French fry in ketchup.

“Wow. Really? Anything?” I said as I perused the list of military professions available to me.

“Military intelligence,” I announced proudly.

He slapped the table hard. “Oh shit, yes! This is so great, Alison.” I couldn’t tell if he was more pleased with me or himself for being the recruiter that would get credit for me. It didn’t matter to me either way.

A few weeks later, we arrived at the Military Entrance Processing Station where the Army would determine if I met all the standards to join. Vision test, hearing test, HIV test, drug and alcohol test, and pregnancy test … all passed.

The final steps in the process were done on the far right side of a large white tile-covered room that looked like a place where they do autopsies. They had a group of us women go behind the dark gray divider curtain, strip down to our underwear, and perform some movements like squatting all the way down and walking like a duck across the room.

After that, one-by-one we were called into the poorly-lit corner of the room where the scale waited at the ready to determine the fate of every young woman left in the room.

A chart hung on the wall above the scale that listed the acceptable body weights, based on BMI, for each height for each branch of the military. My weight put me in the “overweight” category for women of my height and I was disqualified. Shock washed over me.

It didn’t matter at all that I was physically fit, athletic, muscular, and very strong — as most college rugby players are. They didn’t test my fitness at all … they only weighed me. And that was that.

When I found Sergeant Reed in the lobby and I told him what happened, what little color he had drained from him face. And then he got mad.

“What do you mean, you’re too overweight?” His frustration boiled over. “You’re fitter than most people in this building!”

He paced back and forth across the same four floor tiles, mumbling something. But I wasn’t listening to him. I was gathering my bags to get out of there before the flood of tears began.

He rubbed his hand over his clean-shaven scalp and asked if I’d be willing to try to lose some weight and try again. I ignored him. The damage was done. In that moment, I was just a poor, fat kid who was out of options.

Soon after, I quit rugby and ROTC and cut back my course load to part-time so I could get a full-time job to pay for college. And in the days that followed, when friends asked how it went, I lied and said I couldn’t pass the physical because I had a bad hip. To 19 year-old me, it was better to be seen as “damaged” than “too fat”.

And I’ve held on to that lie for the past 25 years.

But I’m 44 now — a 9-time ultrarunner, 20-time marathoner, triathlete, and Crossfit and weightlifting competitor. At no point when I was accomplishing any of those physical feats, have I ever had a “normal” (not overweight) BMI. I know this because my BMI has been listed right along side my blood pressure and height in my medical charts by doctor’s offices that still use this ridiculous metric for god knows what. And every year they send me “helpful” tips for how to lose weight since I’ve been red flagged as being “overweight” in spite of all my excellent heath markers.

In fact, even when I was dealing with disordered eating more than a decade later and my body fat percentage was dangerously low, I still weighed enough to be considered “overweight.” I have the DEXA scan results to prove it.

How is this even possible? Well, BMI makes no distinction between men and women AND YET, healthy body fat percentages for men range between 8-21% and for women between 21-33%. For this reason, women with healthy body fat percentages are more likely than men to be labeled as overweight. Wild.

Over the years, my body weight has fluctuated quite a bit—mostly increasing, as I train to gain strength and muscle mass. Judging my body weight alone, you’d be wrong about when I was the fittest. You’d also be wrong about when I was the happiest, the healthiest, most at peace with my body, and most proud of my body.

25 years later, it’s time to talk about this.

After all, a brick house weighs more than a house of cards.

What has your experience been with BMI? Share with us in the comments. —Alison