Overview
- The Italian study, reported Friday, compared BMI with dual‑energy X‑ray absorptiometry (DXA) in 1,351 adults and found many people were placed in the wrong weight category.
- DXA reclassified 34% of those labeled obese by BMI as overweight, and it found 53% of the BMI‑overweight group actually belonged in other categories.
- DXA showed slightly lower rates overall, with 23.4% overweight and 13.2% obese versus 26.2% and 14.1% by BMI, and it matched BMI best in the normal range (78% agreement) but poorly in the underweight group (68.4% misclassified).
- DXA measures body‑fat percentage and distribution and factors in age, while BMI uses only height and weight and cannot tell fat from muscle, which can steer treatment decisions and eligibility rules off course.
- The sample was all White adults referred to a Verona clinic, the paper appears in Nutrients, and the team plans to present the analysis at ECO 2026 while calling for broader, population‑based studies.