Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2024 Jan:116:105170.
doi: 10.1016/j.archger.2023.105170. Epub 2023 Aug 27.

Assessment of the performance of the body mass index in diagnosing obesity in community-dwelling older adults in Latin American and Caribbean countries

Heliodoro Alemán-Mateo  1 , Miriam T López-Teros  2 , Anabel Nora Pallaro  3 , Carlos Márquez  4 , Eugenia María Quintana Guzmán  5 , Manuel Ramírez-Zea  6 , María Elena Díaz Sánchez  7 , Eleuterio Umpiérrez  8 , Marina Moirano  9 , Asha Badaloo  10 , Ada Rodriguez O'Donnell  11 , Alexia J Murphy-Alford  12 , Eduardo Ferrioli  13
Affiliations

Assessment of the performance of the body mass index in diagnosing obesity in community-dwelling older adults in Latin American and Caribbean countries

Heliodoro Alemán-Mateo et al. Arch Gerontol Geriatr. 2024 Jan.

Abstract

Background: The body mass index (BMI) ≥30 kg/m2 is the universally accepted cut-off point for defining obesity; however, its accuracy in classifying obesity in older adults is poorly understood.

Objectives: To assess the performance of the BMI cut-off point ≥30 kg/m2 in classifying obesity in older adults, using the fat mass index (FMI) and fat mass percentage (FM%) as reference criteria; and to establish region- and sex-specific BMI-based cut-off points to classify obesity in older adults.

Methods: The present study is a secondary analysis derived from a cross-sectional project that included a sample of 1463 older adults from ten Latin American and Caribbean countries. Volunteers underwent total body water measurements using the deuterium dilution technique to determine FMI and FM%. Accuracy of the BMI and derived cutoff points was assessed by the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC).

Results: The BMI cut-off point ≥30 kg/m2 had low sensitivity for classifying obesity in these older adults compared to the FMI and FM%. The AUC values for the optimal BMI-derived cut-off points showed an acceptable-to-outstanding discriminatory capacity in diagnosing obesity defined by the FMI. There was also a better balance between sensitivity and specificity than with the values obtained by a BMI ≥30 kg/m2 in older subjects in both regions.

Conclusion: The BMI cut-off point ≥30 kg/m2 had poor sensitivity for accurately diagnosing obesity in older adults from two regions. The region- and sex-specific BMI-derived cut-off points for defining obesity using the FMI are more accurate in classifying obesity in older men and women subjects from both regions.

Keywords: 80 and over; Body composition and aged; Body mass index; Obesity classification and obesity diagnosis.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of Competing Interest Authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Publication types

LinkOut - more resources