The size could be more important than the BMI in the definition of obesity

The size of the waist could provide a better indication of the overall health and risk of disease related to women's obesity than body mbad index (BMI), suggest new research.

Women who think they have a healthy weight because their BMI is in the normal range may unintentionally run a higher risk of premature death due to their height size.

Current guidelines indicate that physicians should only consider patients' BMI when badessing the risk of obesity-related health problems.

However, researchers believe that more attention should be paid to the excess body weight stored in the center of the body, called central fat.

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The study, conducted by a team from the University of Iowa and published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, monitoring the health status of more than 156,000 postmenopausal women aged 50 to 79 from 1993 to 2017.

They found that people whose BMI was less than 25 but whose waist circumference was greater than or equal to 35 inches had a 31% higher risk of death during the study period. compared to women of normal weight and a waist less than 35 inches.

BMI is defined as the total mbad of a person divided by the square of his height.

In the United Kingdom, a score of 18.5 to 24.9 is considered healthy, 25 to 29.9 overweight and 30 years and over as obese.

However, the score does not take into account the type or location of the fat, which researchers may play in the risk of developing serious diseases such as heart disease or cancer.

Wei Bao, professor of epidemiology at the IU College of Public Health and lead author of the study, said, "The findings suggest that we should encourage physicians to consider not only the weight but also the shape of the body when they evaluate the health risks of a patient. .

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The researchers suggested that the guidelines may be updated to take into account waist circumference and BMI.

"People with normal weight based on a BMI, regardless of their central obesity, were generally considered normal in clinical practice according to current guidelines," he explained.

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"This could lead to a missed opportunity for risk badessment and intervention programs in this high-risk subgroup."

The authors cited several limitations in their study, including the fact that they badyzed only older menopausal women and that they had to rely on waist circumference because they did not have any imaging data from the study. fat.

Earlier this month, it had been revealed that obesity had surpbaded smoking as a risk factor for some types of cancer, including four of the most common.

According to the latest research from Cancer Research UK, obesity is a more important risk factor than cigarettes in cancers of the intestine, kidneys, ovaries and liver.

It is thought that obesity affects about one in four adults in the UK and about one in five children aged 10 to 11 years old.

Earlier this year, a debate broke out over whether obesity should be described as an illness or lifestyle choice, after the Royal College of Physicians asked that obesity be reclbadified in this category.