Concerns BMI reliance is leading to poor health outcomes
Experts and patient groups are concerned about an over-reliance on the body mass index to determine if someone is overweight. The BMI is calculated using a person's weight and height and patients can be denied surgery or treatment if it's too high.
Transcript
00:00 Historically, we have been using the body mass index like a lot of healthcare practitioners
00:07 as a risk factor.
00:10 It is associated with other health conditions and as the BMI goes up, the number of health
00:16 conditions as well as what we would call mortality, your risk of dying and morbidity or diseases
00:22 increases.
00:23 But there has been an over-reliance on the BMI as a cut-off as to determining whether
00:28 someone is pronounced as healthy or unhealthy.
00:31 And what we are realising with latest research is that it is a very crude measure and we
00:36 need more than just one number BMI to determine an individual's health.
00:42 And so have you recently put out advisories to GPs, giving them recommendations on correct
00:49 use of BMI?
00:53 There is a 2019 RACGP position statement on both the prevention and management of obesity
00:59 and absolutely it is a document that encourages holistic care and that BMI is only one marker
01:05 of looking at an individual's current health status and future risk.
01:11 In addition, the NHRMC are looking at revising their guidelines in regards to management
01:17 of obesity and that will be released sometime next year.
01:21 This story today on the ABC raises concerns about BMI being used to deny people procedures
01:28 and being identified as an issue when it is necessarily, not when something else might
01:33 be the cause of the condition.
01:35 What do you know about your members' attitudes on the ground?
01:42 So what I am finding is the patients returning to see their GPs and saying their experiences
01:50 of being upset, feeling shamed, stigmatised and discriminated against when trying to access
01:59 tertiary care.
02:01 And I think that this is very much a moving space and absolutely we are understanding
02:07 that BMI is just one risk factor when assessing the risk of a certain intervention and that
02:14 is really where the historical nature of BMI being used to prioritise access to care.
02:21 And if a person out there is listening now and they have concerns about how a GP has
02:27 used BMI, how should they handle that situation?
02:31 Who should they contact?
02:34 I think that people need to understand that GPs, like everybody, they are fallible.
02:39 Trying to keep up to date with the exploding amount of medical information is extremely
02:44 hard.
02:45 I am promoting all GPs to upskill in obesity, understanding the science behind obesity and
02:51 management because if you look at the statistics, one in three Australian adults are living
02:57 in a larger body and that could be potentially one in three patients coming through that
03:01 GP's door.
03:02 Therefore, we need to know and understand this better.
03:05 So absolutely we are trying to get the message out there to all health practitioners but
03:09 particularly primary care practitioners to understand BMI in the context of personalised
03:15 health and assessment.
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