![]() BMI can no longer be considered a reliable indicator of healthy weight, and further research is needed to identify a suitable alternative. Consequently, BMI underestimated the prevalence of obesity by almost 50 per cent for women and 30 per cent for men. ![]() In the 2011-12 health survey, 10 per cent of women classified as normal weight by BMI, and 50 per cent of women and 25 per cent of men classified as overweight by BMI were obese according to their waist circumference. Despite this limitation, BMI is generally thought to adequately identify risk across the whole population.īut we have recently found BMI is increasingly underestimating the level of risk in the Australian population compared to waist circumference. So BMI tends to overestimate the health risk for adults with a high muscle mass, such as some athletes, and underestimate the risk for adults with a low muscle mass, as can occur with sedentary lifestyles. But BMI or weight alone do not replace the need for a proper checkup with your GP, nor do they provide a guarantee of well-being.īMI is a simple indicator of weight for height and can't differentiate between muscle mass and fat mass. As a rough rule of thumb, both BMI and weight are still helpful for estimating healthiness – particularly when combined with a measurement of waist circumference – and excess weight or significant weight gain are associated with a range of disease outcomes. Then, just as not all overweight individuals have heart disease risk factors or unhealthy metabolisms (the conversion of food into energy), not all lean people have healthy ones. But weight alone doesn’t discriminate between a kilogram of fat versus a kilogram of muscle, nor does it account for body shape and fat distribution differences relating to, say, ethnicity or gender. This is because BMI is a measure of our height and our weight, and the ratios of their combination. While it’s a simple and useful screening tool when looking at groups of people, it’s not an accurate marker of individual health. ![]() BMI, the tool most often used to determine “healthy weight ranges”, was designed primarily to track the weight of populations. There are two questions here – whether BMI is a good indicator of weight, and whether weight is an accurate reflection of health.
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