ArticleEuropean journal of clinical nutrition2016
Diagnostic performance of body mass index to identify adiposity in women.
Article in European journal of clinical nutrition, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 10 papers.
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Who cites it
10 citing papers in PubMed.
- Lifestyle-Intervention-Induced Reduction of Abdominal Fat Is Reflected by a Decreased Circulating Glycerol Level and an Increased HDL Diameter.Molecular nutrition & food research · 2020Trial
- Determining Body Composition-Based BMI Cut-Offs for Ethiopian Adults in Northwest Ethiopia: A Population-Based Cross-Sectional Study.Obesity science & practice · 2025Article
- Impact of Body Fat Distribution and Insulin Sensitivity on In Vitro Fertilization Outcomes: A Prospective Observational Study.Journal of clinical medicine · 2025Article
- Optimal BMI cutoff points in obesity screening for Chinese college students.Frontiers in psychology · 2022Article
- Associations Among Maternal Adiposity, Insulin, and Adipokines in Circulation and Human Milk.Journal of human lactation : official journal of International Lactation Consultant Association · 2021Article
- β-Carotene Status Is Associated with Inflammation and Two Components of Metabolic Syndrome in Patients with and without Osteoarthritis.Nutrients · 2021Article
- Epigenetic Transgenerational Inheritance of Obesity Susceptibility.Trends in endocrinology and metabolism: TEM · 2020Review
- Adiposity and changes in movement-related behaviors in older adult women in the context of the built environment: a protocol for a prospective cohort study.BMC public health · 2019Article
- Reallocating Time from Sedentary Behavior to Light and Moderate-to-Vigorous Physical Activity: What Has a Stronger Association with Adiposity in Older Adult Women?International journal of environmental research and public health · 2018Article
- Performance of body mass index and percentage of body fat in predicting cardiometabolic risk factors in Thai adults.Diabetes, metabolic syndrome and obesity : targets and therapy · 2018Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
2 authors.
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Abstract
BACKGROUND/
objectivesThe aim of this study was to determine the diagnostic performance of body mass index (BMI) and to detect the optimal BMI cutoff points to define adiposity in women of various ages. SUBJECTS/
methodsA total of 2409 women participated. Fat mass was measured using a multifrequency bioelectrical impedance analysis. The diagnostic performance of BMI to identify adiposity was evaluated using a fat mass percentage cutoff point of ⩾35%.
resultsAlthough 40% of women were overfat, the BMI-based obesity prevalence was 21%. In the total sample, BMI had low overall performance, which resulted in a sensitivity of 51.9% (95% confidence interval (CI): 48.7-55.2%) and a specificity of 99.2% (95% CI: 98.7-99.6%). BMI failed to identify overfat women with intermediate BMI ranges. An analysis of the receiver operating characteristic curves of all of the subjects demonstrated that optimal cutoff point corresponded to a BMI value of 26.4 kg/m(2). The diagnostic performance of BMI did not differ as age increased.
conclusionsBMI has a high specificity but a low sensitivity to detect adiposity, and it fails to identify nearly half of women with excess fat mass. We provide evidence that a commonly used BMI cutoff value to diagnose obesity is too high among women.
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