Research

Mixed

High body fat percentage (BFP) and high visceral adipose index (VAI) are significantly associated with increased risk of overweight/obesity and abdominal obesity, whereas smoking and alcohol consumption are not associated with these conditions in southern China.

Focus on body composition rather than just weight. If you have a normal BMI but a high waist circumference or body fat percentage, your risk for metabolic issues is still elevated. Regularly monitoring waist circumference and body fat percentage is more informative than BMI alone for assessing obesity-related risks.

GoodSupportsHIGH confidence
A multivariate logistic regression analysis indicated that being female and having a high BFP and a high VAI were significantly associated with an increased risk of overweight/obesity and abdominal obesity. ... Smoking and drinking were not associated with overweight/obesity or abdominal obesity (all P > 0.05, Table 4).
Lihua Hu et al. · PLoS ONE · 2017

Why this rating

Large cross-sectional sample (n=14,964) with multivariate adjustment, though causality cannot be established.

Source

Prevalence of overweight, obesity, abdominal obesity and obesity-related risk factors in southern China

Lihua Hu et al. · PLoS ONE · 2017

DOI 10.1371/journal.pone.0183934

cross_sectional · n=14964Cited 293×
Read the paper
DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

This is one finding among thousands. Every one is graded and traced to its source, so you can see what the evidence actually supports. Browse the research →