We may be fatter than we think, researchers report

A new study finds that the widely used body mass index, or BMI, may be understating obesity in many people.

The nation's obesity experts are searching for better ways to measure the nation's state of health and to judge the success or failure of treatment programs. (FDA, Lucas Jackson / February 28, 2012)

As if the nation's weight problems were not daunting enough, a new study has found that the body mass index, the 180-year-old formula used to distinguish between healthy and unhealthy weight, may be incorrectly classifying about half of women and just over 20% of men as being the picture of health when their body-fat composition suggests they are obese.

The study, published Monday in the journal PLoS One, uses a patient's ratio of fat to lean muscle mass as the "gold standard" for detecting obesity and suggests that it could be a better bellwether of an individual's risk for health problems.

The researchers suggested that body fat would predict individuals' health risks better than the BMI. To measure fatness, they used a costly diagnostic test called dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry, or DXA, and calculated subjects' level of obesity based on fat-composition standards used by the American Society of Bariatric Physicians.

The results also suggest that the BMI is a poor measure of fatness in men — but not always in a way that underestimates... Read More

Article Link: We may be fatter than we think, researchers report
By Melissa Healy, Los Angeles Times