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The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has long used body-mass index (BMI) to define obesity, whereas the World Health Organization (WHO) uses percentage of body fat. Both classification systems have been challenged, because they do not account for racial and ethnic differences. Investigators recently evaluated the diagnostic accuracy of these systems in healthy young women (age range, 20–33). The 555 participants were self-identified as non-Hispanic white, non-Hispanic black, or Hispanic.
Thirty-seven percent of participants met the NIH definition of obesity (BMI ≥30 kg/m2); 63% met the WHO definition (in women, >35% body fat). When body-fat percentage was used to identify obesity, Hispanic women had higher obesity rates (69%) than did whi…