How should obesity be defined?

1 4 7 4 9 Edi torid How should obesity be defined?The definition of obesity has been and remains a controversial issue.Gone are the days when body weight was used as a yard-stick, and various ratios and other corrections for height also served as criteria.Most widely used today is body mass index (BMI), i.e. the weight in kilograms over height in metres, squared (BMI = kg m-').The BMI attempts to approximate to the logical variable, the total mass of body fat.Few laboratories have the facilities to use direct measurements of total body fat, even for limited experimental studies, and for population studies such measurements are too complex.