ScienceDaily (June 22, 2009) — The body mass index (BMI) and waistline measurement overestimate obesity in African-Americans, according to a new study. BMI is a simple and common method of estimating someone’s body fat levels, based on that person’s weight and height measurement. An indirect measurement, BMI is not a reliable indicator of body fat for people who have a large body frame or lots of lean muscle. More specialized methods, such as DEXA bone density scanning or computed tomography (CT), can directly measure total and regional body fat, but these methods are expensive and more time-consuming. In a study funded by the National Institutes of Health and the American Diabetes Association, they compared how close BMI was to body fat directly measured by DEXA in whites and blacks. He said their data suggest that muscle mass may be higher in blacks, which would explain the dissociation between weight expressed as BMI and measured body fat. read more
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