Body Mass Index (BMI) is the most commonly used measure to determine if a person is underweight, at a healthy weight, overweight, or obese based on their height and weight.
Despite the wide recognition of obesity as a chronic, relapsing, disease marked by an abnormal accumulation of body fat, its diagnosis is still based on BMI cut-off values.
The accumulation of abdominal fat is associated with an increased risk of developing cardiometabolic complications and is a stronger determinant of disease development.
Published in the journal Nature Medicine, the framework specifically examines fat accumulation in the abdomen, measured as the ‘waist-to-height ratio.’