MONDAY, April 2 (HealthDay News) — The way that obesity is
currently measured greatly underestimates the actual number of
women who are obese, a new study suggests. Almost half of women
currently labeled as not obese by virtue of their body mass
index (BMI) turned out to be obese when measured by a newer
method focusing on their percentage of body fat by weight, the
research found. Researchers Dr. Eric Braverman, president of the
Path Foundation in New York City, and Dr. Nirav Shah, the
current New York state health commissioner, say that an accurate
measurement of obesity should include percentage of body fat as
well as the ratio of height and weight known as BMI. “If you’re
counting on looking at your body fat based on body mass index,
it’s virtually completely unreliable,” Braverman said. Based on
BMI alone, “roughly 30 percent of Americans are obese, but when
you use other methods, closer to 60 percent are obese,” he said.
“We call BMI the ‘baloney mass index,’” Braverman noted. “We are
fatter than we rea