BMI Underestimates the Prevalence of Obesity

The scale of the obesity epidemic may be much worse than currently believed since the usual measure, body mass index (BMI), is a very insensitive measure of excess body fat, researchers said at a meeting earlier this week. In a single-center study, 66 percent of patients classified as obese on the basis of dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DEXA) scanning had BMI values in the non-obese range, according to Dr. Eric Braverman of New York Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center. Among...Full Story