There’s big controversy about this now.

Comments about this body fat and body mass index study of Singapore

For Singapore Asians, the study suggests using a BMI of 27.0 as the cutoff for Obesity ( instead of 30 ), and using a Body Mass Index of 21.0 as the cutoff for Overweight ( instead of 25 ), because these values match the same body fat percentages as caucasians.

These values also match the values used in Indonesia.

Singapore’s 3 main ethnic groups: Chinese, Malays and Indians have slightly different body fat, body composition differences. The Obesity threshold for Singapore Indians would therefore be 26. Lets restate from the abstract, that Indians in Singapore had high body fat, Chinese in Singapore had low body fat – at the Exact Same Body Mass Index. Is that weird or what?

Is that weird or what?

That will never catch on. (wink)

I’m noticing how the author Dr. Deurenberg-Yap, is saying that altering a BMI cutoff-point for obesity “would have immense public health implications in terms of policy related to obesity prevention and management.”

Or, it could be “Who cares?”

You are Not Wrong, my friend. These high-profile scientists actually WANT the cutoffs to be low, so that an “epidemic” of obesity is stirred up, and thereby raise the importance of their research, and future prospects of more research.

Cynical are you?

But it happens, for every disease that they mention on TV.

Did the study author want an “epidemic” created in Singapore TV news, about fatness?

Lowering the BMI cut-offs would have inflated the counts of people with obesity.

Reference for further reading

Wang J, Thornton JC et al. Asians have lower body mass index (BMI) but higher percent body fat than do whites: comparisons of anthropometric measurements.

The next time you hear “the war on drugs”, and you realize it was propaganda, the same applies to “global epidemic of obesity“.