South Asians develop insulin resistance at lower body weights than European populations, and carry more fat viscerally. Indian clinical bodies set the thresholds accordingly. A great many corporate screening reports still do not.
The 2009 Indian consensus statement sets overweight at a BMI of 23 and obesity at 25, against the international 25 and 30. An employee at BMI 24 is “normal” under one standard and overweight under the other.
If your screening vendor applies the international thresholds, your dashboard will show a healthier workforce than you have. The people in that gap are precisely the ones an early programme could help, and they have been filtered out before anyone looked.
ICMR-INDIAB found generalised obesity in 28.6% of Indian adults and abdominal obesity in 39.5% — abdominal is the larger figure, and it is the one more closely tied to insulin resistance. A screening programme that records only height and weight is missing the more informative measurement, and it costs a tape measure to add.
Everything downstream of screening — who gets flagged, who gets coached, what your risk profile looks like to an insurer — depends on the thresholds applied at the start. Getting them wrong does not just miss individuals; it misstates the aggregate you are making decisions from.
Healthness+ scores against the Indian consensus thresholds by default. It is worth asking whoever runs your current programme which standard they apply.
Every figure on this page comes from one of the following, checked against the published source before use.
The ROI calculator models this against your own headcount, age profile and premium. A Health Risk Assessment replaces the modelling with what is actually present in your workforce.