Obesity

Obesity is most commonly measured using the body mass index (BMI) scale. The World Health Organization define BMI as: “a simple index of weight-for-height that is commonly used to classify underweight, overweight and obesity in adults.

BMI values are used to define whether an individual is considered to be underweight, healthy, overweight or obese. The WHO defines these categories using the cut-off points: an individual with a BMI between 25.0 and 30.0 is considered to be ‘overweight’; a BMI greater than 30.0 is defined as ‘obese’.