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Gerson T. Lesser, MD

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

Wildman and coworkers¹ present interesting relationships of body mass index (BMI) (calculated as weight in kilograms divided by the height in meters squared) with the prevalence of defined "cardiometabolic abnormalities" in a representative sample of the US population. Their apparent surprise that the presence or absence of metabolic abnormality is often not associated with BMI-defined weight categories should be diminished if we appreciate what the anthropomorphic measurements represent as to fat content and lean body mass (LBM).

The authors note correctly that BMI does not distinguish between fat content and LBM in a 2-compartment body model. Yet their use of BMI to define "normal weight," "overweight," and "obese" carries the implicit assumption that interindividual LBM is constant for any given height so that increased BMI represents increased body fat content. This assumption is not valid; even within a normal, homogeneous cohort of subjects with similar height, . . . [Full Text of this Article]

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