USA rugby star Ilona Maher shut down a commenter who criticized her weight in a brutal TikTok takedown that’s since gone viral.
“I bet that person has a 30% BMI,” wrote one commenter — who has since deleted their account — on one of Maher’s TikTok videos, which prompted the Olympian to film a response.
“Hi, thank you for this comment. I think you were trying to roast me, but this is actually a fact. I do have a BMI of 30. Well, 29.3 to be exact,” Maher began in her video, which has been viewed more than 4.3 million times, and liked more than 629,000 times.
And, Maher said, “I’ve been considered overweight my whole life,” sharing that she’d been categorized as overweight from elementary school into high school.
“I remember vividly in high school, one time, I had to turn a physical into the office, and right at the bottom of the page it said overweight, and I was so embarrassed to turn that in and have that written there,” she said. “My whole life I’ve been this way.”
“I chatted with my dietician, because I go off facts, and not just what pops up here,” she said, tapping her temple before addressing the specific commenter: “You know, like you do.”
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“We talked about BMI, and we talked about how it’s really not helpful for athletes.”
BMI — short for Body Mass Index — is a formula where a person’s weight (in kilograms) is divided by the square of their height (in meters).
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The resulting number is used to sort people into four categories: underweight, healthy, overweight, or obese.
It’s also historically flawed — and as Maher points out, not a true indicator of someone’s ability.
“BMI doesn’t tell you what I can do. It doesn’t tell you what I can do on the field. How fit I am. It’s just a couple of numbers put together,” Maher said. “It doesn’t tell you how much muscle I have, or anything like that. So yeah, I do have a BMI of 30. I am considered overweight.”
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But as she pointed out, “I’ve said it before, I’m 5-ft.-10-in., 200 lbs, and I have about — and this is an estimate — about 170 lbs of lean mass on me. Do that math in your head. You probably can’t.”
She ended her video with a final message to the commenter: “Alas, I’m going to the Olympics — and you’re not.”
