Forget BMI – This is a new formula for measuring health

A 2008 study by the Mayo Clinic examined height, weight, and body fat percentage in groups of more than 13,000 to determine how much BMI diagnosed obesity as defined by the World Health Organization (WHO). Body fat for women, 25% for men.

In this study, 31% of women and 21% of men were classified as obese by BMI, but more than twice as many were obese by their percentage of body fat. In other words, BMI found only half of obese people in the study, giving the other half a false sense of security about their health. Researchers have concluded that BMI accuracy is limited “especially for individuals in the middle BMI range.” In short, it’s very accurate for high-end people in the spectrum, but in the middle it’s pretty patchy. “BMI is a rough measure of fat distribution and is associated with actual obesity,” says Ji.

The study also found that BMI became less accurate as we grew older. You can maintain the same weight as when you were young, but with less muscle and more fat.

Another study, published in 2016, compared the BMI of 40,000 people with specific health measurements such as insulin resistance, blood pressure, and cholesterol levels. Almost half of those diagnosed with BMI overweight were metabolically healthy by these measurements.

Critics also point out that BMI has been designed and validated primarily for white men, and that body composition and corresponding disease risk thresholds may vary by gender and ethnicity. For example, for people with South Asian heritage, a healthy BMI is considered to be 18.5-23, not up to 25 for people with a European background.

There is also a problem with how BMI is applied. According to reports from women and the Equality Commission, health problems in overweight and obese people are often not investigated or diagnosed, as are the same complaints in people of “normal” weight, and doctors simply have their own size. Too often blame the problem. They also found problems with how GPs use BMI to diagnose eating disorders, and some patients said they were too heavy to get help- It is illogical and dangerous to tell people with anorexia or bulimia.

Ji expects BMI to decline and ABSI to grow in popularity, but says the latter isn’t perfect yet. “If you really want to use numbers to indicate health or excess fat, you need to use a machine to detect fat. Percentages, especially where it is,” she says.

Sir David Haslam, a family doctor, obesity expert, and former chairman of the National Institute for Health and Care Technology Evaluation, agrees that a single indicator is by no means sufficient to measure someone’s health. To do. “ABSI is moving forward from a simple and simple BMI, but it’s still against the numbers that tell us how healthy a patient is when there are a lot of things to consider,” he says.

He says he is aware of other symptoms such as pale or shortness of breath that may be a marker of poor metabolic health while 24 BMIs may put someone in the “normal” category. say. “What you really need to do is evaluate someone with your eyes,” he says.

“The important thing is the person in front of you,” he says. “Patients disagree with just numbers.”

A new way to tell if you’re overweight

To calculate ABSI, there are excellent online calculators at: fatcalc.com/absi

For more basic reading, you can measure your hips with a tape measure. According to the British Heart Foundation, a healthy waist circumference is 31.5 inches or less for women and 37 inches or less for men, regardless of age. For men of South Asian, Chinese, Japanese, or African Caribbean heritage, this should be 35.4 inches or less. Please note that this does not take height into account and is not accurate if you are very tall or short.