Quick—what proportion of American adults are obese? About one-third, as you probably already know. How many of those folks are otherwise metabolically healthy? Twenty-nine percent. And how many American adults who are at a healthy weight are metabolically unhealthy? Thirty percent.
The latter two numbers come from new research published today in the International Journal of Obesity. The study's results illustrate the pitfalls of relying too much on body mass index (BMI) as a measure of overall health. To be sure, doctors use a number of measures to evaluate their patients' health, apart from BMI. (Though research shows health-care professionals tend to have a negative attitude toward their overweight patients, which suggests they're overly reliant on BMI in their own way.)
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