Why BMI is flawed — and how to redefine obesity
Why BMI is flawed — and how to redefine obesity
www.nature.com
Why BMI is flawed — and how to redefine obesity
The main diagnostic test for obesity — the body mass index — accounts for only height and weight, leaving out a slew of factors that influence body fat and health.
BMI isn't really flawed, it's misused.
It wasn't created to be used with individuals. It was created as a statistical tool to compare populations.
It doesn't really work at that either.
You can't use it tell if soccer players are fatter on average than rugby players or if Japanese people are fatter than Samoans. Or even if men are fatter on average than women.
But these are population questions.
I think that's just more examples of it being misused. BMI may be useful to compare populations in certain instances. It has value in being easily calculated based off data that is often easy to obtain. But, there are many situations where it would be inappropriate to use BMI for statistical comparison. That doesn't mean it's entirely useless.