Question

Discuss the limitations of BMI. Discuss when it would be most appropriate to use BMI and describe instances when another more formal technique should be utilized and why?

Answer 1

Body mass index (BMI) is a technique to measure the nutritional status of individuals using body weight and to classify them as overweight, underweight and normal.

BMI is appropriate to be used in a general population to measure their health status and to check their obesity. BMI of over 30 is considered obese and less than 18 is underweight.

Limitation of using BMI is that it doesn't tell us about the exact body fat present in body. Highly active athletes have large amount of muscle mass due to which they have high BMI. But they are not obese. High value of BMI among athletes shows that they are obese according to BMI but in reality they have lean mass instead of fat.

So Body adiposity index can be used instead of BMI to correctly measure the body fat which can't be done using BMI. Body adiposity index uses hip circumference and height (instead of weight as used in BMI) to calculate the percentage body fat in an individual and thus is more accurate that BMI.