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Obesity may be more prevalent than previously thought
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Regardless of how they calculate it, what doctors are most concerned about is excess body fat.
PHOTO ILLUSTRATION: PIXABAY
Nina Agrawal
NEW YORK – New research using an updated definition of obesity suggests that many more people may have the disease than previous studies have suggested.
It is estimated that 40 per cent of adults in the United States have obesity. But much of the research used to produce those estimates has relied on body mass index (BMI), a measure of weight relative to height. Doctors have increasingly come to see BMI as an imperfect tool for defining obesity because it does not distinguish excess weight from body fat or from bone and muscle.
