BMI is not the best measurement for obesity

BMI has become a standard tool to determine who is most at risk of the health consequences of excess weight; however, it is not based on medicine or science.

People who seek medical treatment for obesity or an eating disorder do so with the hope their insurance plan will pay for part of it.

But whether it’s covered or not often comes down to a measure invented almost 200 years ago by a Belgian mathematician as part of his quest to use statistics to define the “average man”.