The American Medical Association on Tuesday voted to adopt a policy that encourages clinicians to reduce their focus on body mass index (BMI) in health assessments, stating that the measurement is based on racially exclusive data and has caused harm.
The new policy states that when BMI is used by clinicians, it should be considered alongside other measures, including body composition, waist circumference and genetics, healthcare news outlet STAT reported.
At its annual meeting this week, the AMA said that current BMI cutoffs are based on outdated data from a narrow population of non-Hispanic whites, and exclude information on gender and ethnicity.
BMI is associated with other issues as well, STAT reported. It doesn’t account for differences in some physical characteristics that may be crucial in health assessments, such as fat and lean mass, or account for body fat location.
Its cutoffs also don’t capture risks across racial groups, an AMA subcommittee found. For example, members of racial minority groups including Asians, Hispanics and Blacks have a higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes at lower BMIs than white people. In addition, BMI may not help to uncover eating disorders, and use of the measure is associated with weight bias and insurance barriers, STAT noted.
Alongside its change in policy on BMI, the AMA has also decided to change its guidance on obesity assessments, emphasizing that risks are different between and within demographic groups, and that clinician education should also focus on measures such as body composition, adiposity and waist circumference, it said.
The full story can be found here.
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