ArticleThe Journal of clinical endocrinology and metabolism2025
Defining Overweight and Obesity by Percent Body Fat Instead of Body Mass Index.
Article in The Journal of clinical endocrinology and metabolism, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 79 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
79 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Effects of aerobic exercise on body composition in children and adolescents with overweight and obesity: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials.BMC public health · 2025Pooled it
- Trial
- Maternal Adiposity and DNA Methylation of TfR2 and HJV Genes in Early Pregnancy: Mediating Role of Inflammation and Consequences for Iron Status.The Journal of nutrition · 2026Trial
- Effects of Increasing Farmed Salmon Intake to the Recommended Fish-Intake Amounts on Lipid Profile in Young Women: An 8-Week Intervention Study.Nutrients · 2024Trial
- Key principles for rehabilitation of critically ill patients with obesity.Intensive care medicine · 2026Review
- Adiposity, not chronological aging, is the dominant determinant of circulating testosterone in US adult men.Journal of the Endocrine Society · 2026Article
- Article
- Duplicate-Aware Internal Validation of Machine-Learning Models for Classifying a Tanita BIA-Derived High-Adiposity Phenotype Using Simple Anthropometric Predictors.Journal of clinical medicine · 2026Article
- Low testosterone is a phenotype of visceral adiposity.Journal of the Endocrine Society · 2026Article
- Targeting the activin/myostatin - actrii pathway to preserve skeletal muscle mass in obesity: mechanistic insights and therapeutic perspectives.Reviews in endocrine & metabolic disorders · 2026Review
- A waist-to-height ratio of 0.50 marks declining physical performance in active adults.European journal of clinical nutrition · 2026Article
- Body mass index for the assessment of adiposity in healthy aging Caucasian women: a dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry based study.Rheumatology international · 2026Article
- From maximal weight loss to required weight loss: a call to action for weight management in gynecologic practice.International journal of obesity (2005) · 2026Review
- Obesity and Health Risk Factors in Czech Artillery Soldiers.Military medicine · 2026Article
- Relationships between health behaviors and body fat percentage among nigerian immigrants in the dallas-fort worth metroplex, United States.Journal of public health research · 2026Article
- Article
- Distribution of Muscle Mass and Fat Mass to Identify the Risk of Sarcopenia and Sarcopenic Obesity in Adults via Machine Learning.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Update on Obesity and Its Relationship to Atherosclerotic Cardiovascular Disease and Associated Risk Factors.Journal of clinical medicine · 2026Review
- Time to Address Eating Disorder Risk Among Medical Students.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Association of Total Body Fat Percentiles, Obesity and Cardiometabolic Health Biomarkers in Adults in the United States.Obesity science & practice · 2026Article
19 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
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Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
Abstract
objectiveThresholds for overweight and obesity are currently defined by body mass index (BMI), a poor surrogate marker of actual adiposity (percent body fat [%BF]). Practical modern technologies provide estimates of %BF but medical providers need outcome-based %BF thresholds to guide patients. This analysis determines %BF thresholds based on key obesity-related comorbidities, exhibited as metabolic syndrome (MetSyn). These limits were compared to existing BMI thresholds of overweight and obesity.
designCorrelational analysis of data from cross sectional sampling of 16 918 adults (8734 men and 8184 women) from the US population, accessed by the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey public use datasets.
resultsIndividuals measured by BMI as overweight (BMI > 25 kg/m2) and with obesity (BMI > 30 kg/m2) included 5% and 35% of individuals with MetSyn, respectively. For men, there were no cases of MetSyn below 18%BF, %BF equivalence to "overweight" (ie, 5% of MetSyn individuals) occurred at 25%BF, and "obesity" (ie, 35% of MetSyn individuals) corresponded to 30%BF. For women, there were no cases of MetSyn below 30%BF, "overweight" occurred at 36%BF, and "obesity" corresponded to 42%BF. Comparison of BMI to %BF illustrates the wide range of variability in BMI prediction of %BF, highlighting the potential importance of using more direct measures of adiposity to manage obesity-related disease.
conclusionPractical methods of body composition estimation can now replace the indirect BMI assessment for obesity management, using threshold values provided from this study. Clinically relevant "overweight" can be defined as 25% and 36% BF for men and women, respectively, and "obesity" is defined as 30% and 42% BF for men and women.
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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.