Body Mass Index or body fat! Which is a better obesity scale for Pakistani population?

Objective: to compare two methods of classifying obesity based on body mass index and body fat percentage. methods: the cross-sectional study was conducted from november 2012 to august 2013 at jinnah postgraduate medical centre, karachi. male and female volunteers between the ages 15-65 years were selected using simple random sampling. they were classified into different groups for body mass index and body fat percentage measured through bioelectrical impedance scale. the subjects were sub-grouped into underweight, normal weight, overweight and obese. spss 11 was used for statistical analysis. results: the mean age of the 828 healthy volunteers was 25.67±10.10 years. a total of 552(66.6%) subjects had a higher body fat percentage and were misclassified by body mass index. only 276(33.3%) subjects had body fat percentage values corresponding to the body mass index classification. the difference in terms of categorising obesity was highly significant (p<0.001).both body mass index and body fat percentage showed positive correlation with age (r=0.144; p=0.001) (r=0.261; p=0.001) and weight (r=0.578; p=0.001) (r=0.444; p=0.001) respectively. moreover body fat percentage showed a significant positive association with gender (r=0.109; p=0.027) whereas bmi did not. conclusions: body fat percentage should be incorporated for a better understanding as well as categorising of obesity.