BMI is a good metric for populations as there are very few athletes at that elite level compared to obese people. At an individual level it can be misleading if you’re an athlete with a high muscle to body fat ratio
BMI alone is not a good metric for populations, unless you also acknowledge the error rate. This study, for example, found that it was very inaccurate when used as a sole measure of obesity. From the abstract:
Using BMI categories as the main indicator of health, an estimated 74 936 678 US adults are misclassified as cardiometabolically unhealthy or cardiometabolically healthy.
In a population of around 330 million, that is around a 23% misclassification rate.
BMI isn’t an indicator of health though, which is exactly what the study says. It’s simply a measurement of body mass, which doesn’t account for other factors
BMI is not a good measurement of obesity. Atheletes who are hyper muscular can be considered obese by this metric, for example.
I don’t doubt that obesity is bad in the US, but I do hope they used a better metric than BMI to measure it.
BMI is a good metric for populations as there are very few athletes at that elite level compared to obese people. At an individual level it can be misleading if you’re an athlete with a high muscle to body fat ratio
BMI alone is not a good metric for populations, unless you also acknowledge the error rate. This study, for example, found that it was very inaccurate when used as a sole measure of obesity. From the abstract:
In a population of around 330 million, that is around a 23% misclassification rate.
BMI isn’t an indicator of health though, which is exactly what the study says. It’s simply a measurement of body mass, which doesn’t account for other factors