Using the Body Mass Index (BMI) to diagnose obesity should go the way of blood-letting, an international panel of 58 scientists argued in the British medical journal The Lancet.
Doctors should instead measure how excess body fat affects the body — a measurement called adiposity. Physicians have used BMI in part because it’s a simple calculation that compares weight relative to health.
The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology Commission argues that BMI is more simplistic than simple, because it can both underestimate and overestimate obesity. In doing so, it can exclude or obscure better measures of good health.
