The use of universal body mass index (BMI) cutoffs do not take into account variation in the association between BMI and health risk across diverse ethnic groups. We used the New Zealand Health Survey data collected between 2002/2003 and 2014/2015 to calculate the predictive marginal means of hypertension, cardiovascular diseases, and type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) after adjusting for demographic variables and health-related behaviors. Compared with European group, we found that Pacific had a lower prevalence of hypertension at a BMI of ≥35 kg/m2, and Māori had a higher prevalence of hypertension, T2DM, and cardiovascular diseases at higher BMI intervals. Whereas Asian had a higher T2DM prevalence compared with Māori, Pacific, and European at some BMI intervals. Using universal BMI cutoffs on the ethnically diverse population to compare obesity rates does not address the risk of chronic diseases associated with high BMI and may stigmatize certain ethnic groups.
Keywords: BMI; CVD; Māori; Pacific; diabetes; ethnicities; hypertension; obesity.