Race, Ethnicity, Sex, and Obesity: Is It Time to Personalize the Scale? Mayo Clinic Proceedings. Identification of Obesity and Cardiovascular Risk in Ethnically and Racially Diverse Populations. Misclassification of Cardiometabolic Health When Using Body Mass Index Categories in NHANES 2005–2012. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. We use only trustworthy sources, including peer-reviewed studies, board-certified medical experts, patients with lived experience, and information from top institutions. Because you can have someone who looks solid but still is very healthy.”Įveryday Health follows strict sourcing guidelines to ensure the accuracy of its content, outlined in our editorial policy. “In the process, they lose weight, their BMI drops - not significantly - but it drops enough to say that instead of having obesity, now they’re overweight. Otherwise, the focus is on exercising more, eating a healthier diet, and reducing their average blood sugar levels to help prevent type 2 diabetes. But she usually discusses the measurement with patients - many of whom are Black - only if they ask about it. Helenica Yusuf, a certified dietitian-nutritionist who works with patients at the Brookdale University Hospital and Medical Center’s diabetes prevention program in Brooklyn, New York, says that patients’ BMIs are recorded because they must reach a certain threshold to qualify. “That’s about self-perception and self-acceptance. Rather than focusing on getting to a “normal” or so-called “healthy” standard BMI or weight, she likes to work with her patients on achieving a “happy weight,” where you have reached your health goals and are able to maintain that weight happily. None of this means people should be overly concerned by what the standards are, says Gonsahn-Bollie. “It is very challenging at the individual level for a clinician to really say this is your healthy weight because we’re using all that bias from the population-based BMI and trying to apply it to the individual.” It was not designed to be used for individuals,” says Sylvia Gonsahn-Bollie, MD, a Black obesity medicine doctor in the Washington, DC, metro area and the author of Embrace You: Your Guide to Transforming Weight-Loss Misconceptions Into Lifelong Wellness. Black women are also more likely to develop obesity-related conditions such as diabetes, hypertension, and high cholesterol than their white counterparts.īut remember that BMI is a number used as one reference point to help identify risk factors and confirm diagnoses for obesity and other health conditions. (Equal percentages of Black and white men have obesity: 31 percent.) The average Black woman is 187 pounds, with a BMI of 32.2, which is considered obese. Using current BMI standards, 44 percent are categorized as obese, compared with 29 percent of non-Hispanic white women. Even with the proposed adjustments, Black women have the highest rate of obesity among all groups in the United States.