Using Body Mass Index Skews Analyses on Obesity Rates

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Source: Cornell University

Released: Sun 09-Jul-2006, 17:25 ET

http://www.newswise.com/articles/view/521795/?sc=dwhp

Using Body Mass Index Skews Analyses on Obesity Rates

Description

When researchers use percent of body fat data to assess obesity rather

than body mass index (BMI), the huge gap in obesity rates between

African-American and white women, for example, is cut in half, and white

men are found to have a much higher risk of obesity than

African-American men.

Newswise — When researchers use percent of body fat data to assess

obesity rather than body mass index (BMI), the huge gap in obesity rates

between African-American and white women, for example, is cut in half,

and white men are found to have a much higher risk of obesity than

African-American men.

While the medical literature has long showed that percent of body fat is

a more accurate measure of fatness than BMI, most social science

researchers still use BMI because that is what is available in most

social science-based data sets. But because BMI ignores the difference

between fat and fat-free mass like bone and muscle, such studies, for

example, overstate the obesity of African-Americans relative to whites.

That's because on average, African-Americans have more nonfat mass, says

Cawley and Burkhauser, professors of policy analysis and

management who have conducted an analysis comparing measures of obesity.

Their report offers a conversion tool to enable researchers using social

science data sets to calculate body fat percentages and other more

accurate measures of obesity in data sets that only contain information

on height and weight.

Using more accurate measures of obesity makes a difference. " We've

already found indications of a correlation between high percentages of

body fat and employment disability, " said Burkhauser. " And we wouldn't

have been able to determine that using BMI. "

The researchers' working paper was released in June by the National

Bureau of Economic Research.

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