Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Improving Self Reported BMI

Many epidemiological studies measure adiposity (obesity) through the surrogate BMI via self reported measures of height and weight. As I have mentioned before, there are many problems with this. But how can we improve on this while maintaining our level of accuracy and not using a direct measure requiring a more intensive doctor visit?

Two ideas to use along with BMI:
1. Waist size - pant size for men, dress size for women
2. Bench press - probably more reasonable for men. Could use max (weight you can bench press once), or weight you can bench press ten times.

1 comment:

Demers said...

LOL @ 60 year-old women doing the bench press.