Researchers from the University of Alberta say the Body Mass Index, BMI, that measures a person’s body size from their weight and height, is not only a bad indicator of how healthy you are, it can lead to doctors prescribing wrong treatment. A healthy BMI is typically measured between 18.5 and 24.9. Anything under 18.5 is considered underweight.
BMIs between 25 and 29.9 fall into overweight territory, and above 30 is considered obese. While someone with a BMI of above 30 is considered obese by the metric, they may actually be perfectly healthy, metabolically speaking. On the other hand, some people with BMIs below 30 have health problems that could improve if they were to lose weight.
BMI tells how big you are, not how sick you are so it is not a good criteria to be diagnosing a disease. However, the researchers say what many fail to recognize is that BMI is just a quick and objective number to cite so patients can be told if they have a weight problem.
Obesity specialists should use BMI as a first step, and then go beyond BMI as needed. But the doctors admit that BMI still has its place in medicine.
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