Body Fat Measurements Overestimate Fatness In Blacks ---Alleluia Somebody!! (241 hits)
(BlackDoctor.org) -- The body mass index (BMI) and waistline measurement overestimate obesity in blacks, according to a new study. The results, which were presented at The Endocrine Society’s 91st Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C., suggest that conventional methods for estimating body fat may need to become race-specific. ... “These findings argue for a review of the existing cutoffs for healthy BMI and waist circumference among African-Americans.”...
National data show that blacks have higher rates of obesity and type 2 diabetes than whites. Dagogo-Jack and his co-workers therefore examined whether the relationship between body fat and BMI would differ by race. 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.
The researchers performed the same comparison for waist circumference and abdominal fat. They studied 93 nondiabetic adults (53 blacks and 40 whites) who have one or both parents with type 2 diabetes. Subjects had a broad range of body weights. The correlation between DEXA-measured total fat and the BMI was higher in whites than blacks, the authors reported. The same was true for the correlation between directly measured abdominal fat and waist size.
Therefore, body fat is likely to be lower in blacks than in whites of the same weight and height, Dagogo-Jack said. 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. “If our results are confirmed in a larger study population by other researchers, the obesity field will need to develop ethnic-specific cutoffs for what values represent overweight and obesity,” he concluded.
We do not need "tools" to determine if we are not doing the right thing by our bodies. The body always tells us if something is wrong, especially when it comes to obesity, hypertension, diabetes and just an overall high level of inactivity (exercise). We are losing this battle every second of the day. BMI indexes were never really accurate from the jump. Water immersion is really the closest way to determine a person's bodyfat index. There is also a new machine on the market that a lot of pro athletes use that gives pretty accurate results.
Wednesday, June 17th 2009 at 10:41AM
Maree Armstead
I agree with you Maree. I've always gauged my health by what my body has told me, but you have so many people and entities with their stakes sold out on BMI. I had a doctor write in my chart that I was obese. Can you imagine?! I'm hardly obese and have never been, but according to him I was. I'm healthy, I'm exercising, and I see my physician religiously on an annual basis for my health physicals.
Wednesday, June 17th 2009 at 1:32PM
Jen Fad
