New University of Florida study finds body fat percentage is 78% more accurate than body mass index in predicting mortality risk, challenging the long-standing use of BMI as a health indicator.

When a team of scientists led by a Washington State University researcher examined the way that more than 9,400 children grew from toddlers to pre-adolescents, two distinct trajectories emerged.

Under recommendations released Tuesday night, obesity would no longer be defined solely by BMI, a calculation of height and weight, but combined with other measurements, such as waist ...

Despite BMI’s ubiquity of use by health care professionals, it’s far from a perfect measure. To begin with, it measures total weight, rather than the weight attributed to fatty tissue.

A BMI of 30 or above generally classifies adults as having obesity, according to the WHO. (The recommended cutoff is 27.5 in Asians.) But the metric represents weight divided by height squared ...

Importantly, McGarrity notes, weight loss itself wasn’t associated with these positive changes to health. Change in BMI did not correlate with depression, anxiety, or dysregulated eating—implying that ...

The new definitions are likely to be confusing, said Kate Bauer, a nutrition expert at the University of Michigan School of Public Health. “The public likes and needs simple messages.