Definition of obesity: beyond the body mass index

Abstract

Obesity is one of the main contemporary public health problems, it has been associated in its genesis with psychosocial and behavioral variations, while obesity is related to various non-infectious diseases such as diabetes mellitus type 2 (DM2), arterial hypertension (AH), alterations of the musculoskeletal system and various neoplasms. Traditionally, obesity has been evaluated and classified according to body mass index (BMI), however, this evaluation is nonspecific because it does not discriminate body composition, so it is currently considered to define obesity based on body resistance to the passage of a low intensity alternating electric current, the electrical impedance.