More people could count as obese under newly proposed definition — here's what you need to know

A new study supports a more nuanced approach to obesity diagnosis. Here's what to know.

Obesity is linked to a range of health problems ‪—‬ including heart disease, diabetes and early death ‪—‬ but it can be hard to know who is most at risk for these outcomes. Doctors and researchers often use body mass index (BMI) as a convenient tool to assess patients, but this metric does not account for individual differences in body composition, scientists have long argued.

"BMI misses a lot of information," Dr. Francesco Rubino, a professor of bariatric and metabolic surgery at King's College London, told Live Science.

Rubino recently chaired a team of 56 experts that was assembled to better define obesity and develop new diagnostic criteria for the condition.…