Lancet report urges overhaul of obesity diagnosis, says BMI alone not reliable measure of disease

NEW DELHI: Urging an overhaul of how obesity is diagnosed, a Lancet Global Commission report has recommended a new, nuanced approach that looks at measures of body fat such as waist circumference or waist-to-hip ratio in addition to body mass index or BMI to detect obesity.

The authors said that current medical approaches rely on BMI, which is not an honest measure of health or disease in an individual, and can result in a wrong diagnosis, potentially causing negative consequences for people living with obesity.

Part of the issue is the current definition of BMI, with a value of over 30 indicating obesity among people of European descent. Country-specific cutoffs help account for how obesity risk changes with ethnicity, said the international team, including experts from India.

Source: PTI News

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