This systematic review and meta-analysis was performed to determine the accuracy of body mass index (BMI) to identify excess body adiposity (percent body fat). Analyses were performed on data from 31,968 individuals from 32 research studies from 12 different countries. Results showed that the performance of BMI to identify excess adiposity had a good specificity (90%), but a poor sensitivity (~50%). The low sensitivity indicates that many individuals are not classified as obese but they do present excess adiposity. Results of this study suggest that BMI has its own limitations to diagnose excess adiposity at the individual-person level and that it should not be considered as the only measure of obesity in patient care settings.
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