One tool doctors have long used for measuring ideal body weight is body mass index (BMI). It's a measure of your body weight in kilograms divided by the square of your height in meters.

While the new recommendations still uses BMI as a "first pass" screening tool, it drills down into whether a person has pre-clinical obesity or clinic obesity with other means of measure ...

Dr. Brett Osborn, a neurosurgeon, longevity expert and fitness competitor based in Florida, agrees that BMI is an "outdated measure" for diagnosing obesity. "It is clear that obesity should no ...

Traditional methods centered around Body Mass Index (BMI) are being challenged by new research suggesting this one-dimensional approach may be inadequate for accurately assessing individual health ...

The previous version of this story was published in 2022, when Business Insider spoke to Dr. Fatima Cody Stanford. It has been updated to reflect the findings of a new report. Chances are, a ...

Share on Pinterest A panel of global experts explains why BMI is not the most helpful measurement of body weight, and how else doctors can diagnose obesity. Image credit: VICTOR TORRES/Stocksy.

Doctors now prescribe Novo Nordisk's weight-loss drug Wegovy for people who have a BMI of 30 or more. Patients who have a BMI of at least 27 can also qualify if they have another weight-related ...

Currently, the BMI cutoff is 30 for the increasingly popular GLP-1 drugs. David J. Phillip/AP file Share Doctors should stop relying solely on a patient’s body mass index to diagnose obesity and ...