Nutrition Today· 2015Q4· Review
Body Mass Index
- 2,215citations
- Q4SCImago
- 2015year
Short summary
Body Mass Index (BMI) is a widely used metric for classifying adult height/weight and as a health risk factor, but it is a poor indicator of body fat percentage and fat distribution, and shows age-related mortality risk across a wide BMI range.
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Key points
- BMI is widely used to define anthropometric characteristics and classify adults into body mass categories.
- It is commonly interpreted as an index of fatness and used as a risk factor for various health issues.
- BMI is a poor indicator of percent body fat and does not capture information on fat distribution across different body sites.
- Current evidence indicates a wide range of BMIs are associated with modest mortality risk, which is age-related.
AI-generated from the title and abstract; the full text is not read.
Abstract
The body mass index (BMI) is the metric currently in use for defining anthropometric height/weight characteristics in adults and for classifying (categorizing) them into groups. The common interpretation is that it represents an index of an individual's fatness. It also is widely used as a risk factor for the development of or the prevalence of several health issues. In addition, it is widely used in determining public health policies.The BMI has been useful in population-based studies by virtue of its wide acceptance in defining specific categories of body mass as a health issue. However, it is increasingly clear that BMI is a rather poor indicator of percent of body fat. Importantly, the BMI also does not capture information on the mass of fat in different body sites. The latter is related not only to untoward health issues but to social issues as well. Lastly, current evidence indicates there is a wide range of BMIs over which mortality risk is modest, and this is age related. All of these issues are discussed in this brief review.
The authors' abstract, as published at the source. Nutrition Today, 2015 · DOI ↗
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Field: Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health
Public Health, Environmental and Occupational HealthMedicine