https://www.thelancet.com/journals/landia/article/PIIS2213-8587(24)00316-4/abstract
Francesco Rubino David E Cummings Robert H Eckel Ricardo V Cohen John P H Wilding Wendy A Brown et al:
We recommend that BMI should be used only as a surrogate measure of health risk at a population level, for epidemiological studies, or for screening purposes, rather than as an individual measure of health. Excess adiposity should be confirmed by either direct measurement of body fat, where available, or at least one anthropometric criterion (eg, waist circumference, waist-to-hip ratio, or waist-to-height ratio) in addition to BMI, using validated methods and cutoff points appropriate to age, gender, and ethnicity. In people with very high BMI (ie, >40 kg/m2), however, excess adiposity can pragmatically be assumed, and no further confirmation is required.
I.e. as is commonly mentioned here and elsewhere, the authors say that BMI alone is not a good assessment for obesity in individual cases.
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Related infographics athttps://www.thelancet.com/infographics-do/clinical-obesity-25
Note also the distinction between preclinical obesity (does not currently have symptoms of an obesity-related organ dysfunction) and clinical obesity (has symptoms of an obesity-related organ dysfunction).
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