![]() Because of this, it is not always an accurate depiction of health for other demographics and races.įor example, researchers found the BMI obesity cut-off for Asian populations actually falls lower than the standard BMI chart. When Quetelet originally created BMI, it pulled data from Anglo-Saxon bodies in an entirely European population. BMI does not account for different demographics "Body fat percentage will give a better assessment of health because the disease risk is more correlated with body fat rather than body weight," says Chika Anekwe, MD, MPH, an obesity medicine physician at Massachusetts General Hospital and an instructor at Harvard Medical School.Ģ. Because muscle tissue is more dense than fat, many athletes and bodybuilders are considered overweight according to BMI despite being in peak athletic health. One of the main issues with BMI is that it cannot account for the difference between muscle and fat. It is normally measured with skinfold calipers, bioelectrical impedance, or most accurately through a DXA X-ray Scan. ![]() BMI does not measure body fat percentageīody fat percentage (BFP) is the percent of your body that is fat tissue compared to your total body mass. When analyzing BMI on the individual level, there are several other factors to consider that BMI does not take into account:ġ. While BMI may be a quick, affordable, and easily accessible way to screen for a person's health, the formula is better suited for information about general populations, according to Stanford. No, BMI is not always an accurate measure of health "But the problem with looking at that historical data is that it did not include the diverse representation of individuals in the United States." "MLIC developed the idea of a BMI classification to determine what height and weight people had relative to their death," says Fatima Cody Stanford, MPH, an obesity medicine physician and scientist at Massachusetts General Hospital. The formula then evolved through the 1940s when the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company (MLIC) installed an ideal weight standard to determine how much to charge clients for insurance based on their health. The results are broken down into four categories:ĭoctors may use BMI measurements as a screening tool to indicate which category you fall into, and whether you have an increased risk for certain health conditions, such as heart disease or diabetes, based on your results.īMI was initially created in the 19th century by the Belgian mathematician and statistician Lambert Adolphe Quetelet as a way to measure obesity in the general population. BMI, or body mass index, is a calculation that estimates a person's body fat by dividing their weight in kilograms by their height in meters squared (BMI = kg/m2).
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