A new report says only using BMI to determine if a patient has obesity leads to under-diagnosing people who are ill and over-diagnosing people who don't currently deal with the negative health consequences of obesity.

Obesity, long determined by the flawed metric of BMI, should be diagnosed based on other measurements, experts argue.

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Our reframing acknowledges the nuanced reality of obesity and allows for personalized care,” said Dr. Francesco Rubino of King’s College London.

An international committee of scientists has proposed changing the way obesity is defined and diagnosed. The proposal adds more ways to measure body composition and fat.

Body Mass Index, or BMI, has long been criticized as an unreliable method for measuring obesity — and now a group of experts is sharing new recommendations for how to use it.

Medical experts have urged a shift away from the Body Mass Index (BMI) as the main yardstick to determine obesity as it does not factor in body fat levels. The prevalent method is so flawed that it may have likely led to fit athletes being told they are overweight,

As of March 2020, nearly 42% of US adults had obesity, with the report estimating that more than a billion people are living with obesity worldwide.

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 circumference, plus evidence of health problems tied to extra pounds.