New recommendations to measure obesity go beyond controversial BMI. A doctor explains.

Body mass indexor BMI, has long been criticized as a flawed method for measuring obesity — and now a group of experts is sharing new recommendations.

BMI is a formula that uses a person’s height and weight ratio to assess whether they’re underweight, normal weight, overweight or obese, although it is not a direct measure of body fat.

In the report, published Tuesday in The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology journal, more than 50 experts proposed a new way for medical professionals to define and diagnose obesity that puts less emphasis on BMI.

While the new recommendations still uses BMI as a “first pass” screening tool, it drills down into whether a person has pre-clinical obesity or clinic obesity with other means of measure, Dr. Céline Gounder, CBS News medical contributor and editor-at-large for public health at KFF Health News, said on “CBS Mornings” Wednesday.

“So what that means is, do you actually have excess fat?” Gounder said, explaining there are three main ways to measure that.

1. Waist circumference, or a waist to hip ratio: “So if your waist is over 35 inches for a woman or 40 inches for a man, that means you do have excess fat, or are you apple-shaped versus pear-shaped?” Gounder said.

2. Directly measuring body fat: “Some older women might be familiar with a DEXA test to assess for bone thinning or osteoporosis. That can also be used to measure body fat,” Gounder said.

3. Effects on your daily living activities: “Can you climb up and down stairs? If you’re not able to because of your weight, that would be clinically obese,” she said. “Do you see damage to your organs, your kidneys, your heart, et cetera because of your obesity? That would be clinical obesity.”

The updated recommendations were endorsed by 76 organizations worldwide, including scientific societies and patient advocacy groups, the authors of the report said, though it’s not clear how widely or quickly they could be put into practice. The report acknowledges that shifting to these recommendations will bring both cost and workforce challenges.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, BMI is an “inexpensive and easy screening method” that is “strongly correlated” with weight-related medical conditions. But in recent years, BMI has come increasingly under fire with critics denouncing the method as not just unreliable but sexist and racist.

“BMI is really looking at how much do you weigh relative to your height. But not every, say, six foot man who has the same weight is obese versus healthy. Some of them may actually be strapping, muscular guys versus somebody who is truly overweight or obese. So we’re trying to distinguish between this,” Gounder said.

For example, many professional athletes are considered clinically obese based on the BMI scale, because it cannot distinguish the weight of muscle from the weight of fat.

Taylor Mooney

contributed to this report.