body mass index is a 'strong' indicator of covid-19 mortality in visible minorities

according to a study shared in medrxiv this week, black, south asian, and other visible minority groups are at a significantly higher chance of death if the person who gets sick has a high body mass index, compared to caucasian people. 

“the increased risks of covid-19 infection, severe disease and death associated with obesity and ethnicity has been well researched in their own right, but this is the first study to present findings on how the risk of covid-19 mortality in ethnic minority groups is dependent on bmi, with obesity seeming to magnify the higher risk reported in ethnic minority groups,” tom yates, lead author of the study, said in a statement . 

a person’s bmi is calculated using  height and weight, according to the centers for disease control and prevention : weight in pounds divided by height in inches squared, then multiplied by 703. for example, if a person is 5’5 (65 inches) and 150 pounds, his or her bmi is 24.96 ( [150 ÷ (65)2] x 703)

although a higher bmi was noted for a greater risk of death for all ethnicities, the bmi number was significantly higher in white people — meaning that for the same amount of mortalities in each race, white people were usually heavier.  a bmi of up to 40 was recorded in caucasians, while the highest it reached for an ethnic group was 32.2. 

as of 2018, 26.8 per cent of canadian adults were living with obesity, and an additional 36.6 per cent were overweight, according to the federal government . that means nearly two thirds of canadians, 63.1 per cent, were overweight or had obesity as of 2018.