The Body Roundness Index takes more than just height and weight into account.
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When my oldest son was in high school, we got a Wii Fit.
My son threw the remote, said This is stupid, and never played it.
Photo:Halfpoint/Getty Images
For example, athletes with greater muscle mass, like my son, will naturally weigh more.
So according to the BMI charts, he was obese for his height.
BMI also cannot determine where body fat is distributed.
But two people with the same BMI may have dramatically different builds.
Its calculated using an equation incorporating height, weight and waist circumference.
Lets see what it shows.
How Was This Study Conducted and What Did It Show?
Researchers used data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey from 1999 to 2018.
Surveys are done via in-home interviews and mobile examination centers.
Several statistical analyses were run on the data, before and after adjusting for the covariates.
Because of this, researchers needed to create their own categories.
At the studys halfway point, researchers noticed a U-shaped association between BRI and deaths.
From this, they formed various categories called quintiles with Q1 being the lowest BRI and Q5 the highest.
Q3 was assigned as the reference group.
What they found was very interesting.
This was especially true in individuals aged 65 and older.
In other words, people with very low BRI tend to be malnourished and lose a lot of muscle.
This results in fatigue and not being able to be physically active.
How Does This Apply to Real Life?
Lack of sleepandchronically high stress levelsalso encourage belly fat accumulation.
When stress is chronic, the stress hormone cortisol is constantly buzzing around in your body.
Cortisol does several things, including encouraging fat storage in, you guessed it, the abdomen.
