American Medical Association declares use of Body Mass Index is 'racist'

The American Medical Association (AMA) has issued new guidance declaring it is."racist" to use Body Mass Index as a measurement in medicine.

Body Mass Index (BMI) is a measurement long used by medical doctors to categorize an individual's weight as either undeweight, overweight, obese, etc. The process involves dividing a person's weight by their height.

But according to the AMA's newly adopted policy "clarifying" BMI’s role in medicine, BMI is tainted with "historical harm" and perpetuates "racist exclusion," going on to state that it operates "based primarily on data collected from previous generations of non-Hispanic white populations."

"Due to significant limitations associated with the widespread use of BMI in clinical settings," the association wrote in a press release, "the AMA suggests that it be used in conjunction with other valid measures of risk such as, but not limited to, measurements of visceral fat, body adiposity index, body composition, relative fat mass, waist circumference and genetic/metabolic factors."

Obesity has been regarded as a crippling issue in the United States. According to the CDC, American obesity prevalence hit 41.9% in 2017 and is linked to some of the leading causes of preventable or premature death, such as heart disease, stroke, types of cancer, diabetes and more.

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