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.

But a movement to shift away from BMI as a measure of individual health risk alone is gaining steam: Last week, the American Medical Association adopted a new policy on the index, noting ...

Complications associated with obesity have become one of the leading causes of healthcare spending, — in the past 30 years, there’s been a 140% increase in spending. In 2021, 335,000 deaths ...

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.

A new University of Florida Health study shows that body mass index, or BMI — commonly used to measure obesity and health ...

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.

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 ...