ReviewSociology of health & illness2021
Body mass index is just a number: Conflating riskiness and unhealthiness in discourse on body size.
Review in Sociology of health & illness, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 36 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
36 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 58 citations in OpenAlex.
- Polygenic scores and physical fitness prediction: a systematic review.Human genetics · 2026Pooled it
- Does BMI Impact Outcomes in Patients Undergoing Open Abdominal Wall Reconstruction? A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.World journal of surgery · 2025Pooled it
- "International journal of qualitative studies on health and well-being · 2026Article
- Early Pregnancy Body Roundness Index and Development of Adverse Pregnancy Outcomes: A Secondary Analysis of the nuMoM2b Study.Obesity (Silver Spring, Md.) · 2026Observational
- Vaginal microbiomes and their pertinent social context: a microbial ecological review proffering AMR-STI acquisition and emergence.Biology of sex differences · 2026Review
- Beyond the Scale: Setting Goals for Outcomes Beyond Weight in Evidence-based Obesity Treatment.Current obesity reports · 2026Review
- Long-term impact of newly-proposed clinical obesity on autoimmune disease incidence: insights from the UK Biobank.International journal of obesity (2005) · 2026Article
- Metabolic score for visceral fat: a novel tool for assessing stroke risk in middle-aged and elderly Chinese adults - evidence from the CHARLS cohort study.BMC neurology · 2026Article
- Article
- Associations between perceived stress, psychosocial stressors, and HbA1c levels in healthy young adults from a prospective cohort study.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Body roundness index: superior predictors of intramuscular fat infiltration in general population.Frontiers in nutrition · 2026Article
- It is not what you weigh, it is how you present it: body size, attractiveness, physical functioning, and access to partnership and sexuality for older men and women.Social forces; a scientific medium of social study and interpretation · 2025Article
- A Call to Action: Addressing Medical School as a Source of Weight Stigma Requires Transformative Change.American journal of preventive medicine · 2025Article
- Association between metabolic score for visceral fat and psoriasis: findings from NHANES.European journal of medical research · 2025Article
- Consensus recommendations for measuring the impact of contraception on the menstrual cycle in contraceptive clinical trials.Contraception · 2025Article
- Physical Fitness and Health Profile of Adolescents Living in Amazonas.American journal of human biology : the official journal of the Human Biology Council · 2025Article
- Correlation Between Metabolic Score for Visceral Fat and Cardiovascular-Kidney-Metabolic Syndrome: Analysis of NHANES 2011-2020.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Association between body roundness index and osteoarthritis/rheumatoid arthritis: a cross-sectional study.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Weight discrimination partially mediates the longitudinal relationship between Body Mass Index and pain.The journal of pain · 2025Article
- Unraveling molecular interconnections and identifying potential therapeutic targets of significance in obesity-cancer link.Journal of the National Cancer Center · 2025Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
1 author at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Despite the ubiquity of the body mass index (BMI) in discourse on health, there is ambiguity in its use as a biomarker of current abnormality versus future risk. This distinction is consequential for knowledge of the relationship between body size and health, as well as for individuals deemed to have abnormal and 'unhealthy' bodies. Consequently, the purposes of this review are threefold. The first is to differentiate this 'biomarker' perspective from extant critiques of BMI as a proxy for health behaviours or as the defining characteristic of obesity as a disease. The second is to highlight the shift towards treating BMI as a measure of attained unhealthiness, rather than a probabilistic indicator of risk. Finally, rather than call for the abolition of BMI, this paper argues that its continued use as 'just a number' is in keeping with the push for weight neutrality in research and practice. The review concludes by demonstrating how the riskiness and unhealthiness of body size is conflated in public health messaging on COVID-19. BMI is a marker of risk, but its use as a surrogate for COVID-19 severity equates body size with health, shaping beliefs about vulnerability and personal responsibility amid an ongoing pandemic.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.