DETROIT – Changes are coming to the way doctors and military branches determine whether someone is overweight, and that could affect everyone, including soldiers.
There’s more focus than ever on health and how to treat obesity. But with that attention comes deeper conversations about how to define whether or not someone is “overweight” or “obese.”
Body mass index and the way the military calculates what’s considered a “fit” soldier are both undergoing changes.
BMI as a concept -- correlating height to weight in order to tell when someone is “overweight” -- has been around since the 1970s. Its use as a screening tool has grown, but at the same time, so has the understanding of different types of body fat.
New policy on BMI
Most doctors in the United States screen for obesity by using BMI, which considers over 25 to be “overweight.” A BMI at 30 or above is considered “obese.”
But there’s been a recent shift away from BMI as the sole measure of individual health risk. Last week, the American Medical Association adopted a new policy on the BMI that acknowledges significant limitations.
For example, BMI doesn’t differentiate between lean and fat body mass, and it doesn’t account for differences between racial and ethnic groups, gender, or age.
The AMA suggests other measures of health risk should be used alongside BMI, such as waist circumference, measurement of visceral fat, body composition, and genetic and metabolic factors.
That could change how “overweight” and “obesity” are defined for many people.
Body fat measurement for soldiers
The U.S. Army wants its soldiers to be healthy, fit, and lean, so it has come up with a new way to measure the body fat of those who serve. The change could result in more soldiers failing their body fat assessments.
Previously, men were measured around the neck and stomach, while women were measured around the neck, waist, and hips.
Now, all soldiers, regardless of gender, will be measured around the navel to determine body fat.
Data provided to CNN shows 34% of people who passed the previous measurement test would fail the new version. The change is a possible concern, since soldiers who fail to meet the weight standards can be separated from the service.
