Millions more middle-aged are obese, study suggests
Millions of middle-aged people have been mistakenly led to believe they are not obese, according to an Italian study that looked at body fat instead of weight related to height.
The standard way of categorising people's weight is by calculating their body mass index, or BMI, which means dividing an adult's weight in kilograms by the square of their height in metres.
It is a quick and easy method, supported by the World Health Organization, external (WHO), and pretty accurate in most people most of the time - but cannot differentiate between fat, muscle and bone.
A study of 4,800 adults aged 40-80 years old, external , led by the University of Tor Vergata in Rome, and presented at the European Congress on Obesity, looked at an alternative - measuring body fat percentage.
Just 38% of the men and 41% of the women had a BMI above 30 - but when their body fat percentage was calculated using scans, 71% and 64% were found to be obese.
