The American Medical Association voted to adopt a new policy on Tuesday encouraging doctors not to rely only on body mass index, a long-used but potentially misleading metric, when assessing weight and health. The policy officially recognizes the “historical harm” of B.M.I. is influential in the medical community, the new recommendation is just a suggestion to doctors, not a strict rule they must comply with. The association, one of the largest medical groups in the country, will now recommend that doctors not use B.M.I. alone to assess whether a patient is at a healthy weight.

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Persons: ”, Cynthia Romero, Brock, Scott Hagan, “ Organizations: American Medical Association, Brock Institute for Community, Global Health, Eastern Virginia Medical School, University of Washington