The FDA approved Qsymia only for obese people or for overweight people with a body mass index greater than 27 who also suffer from weight-related conditions like hypertension and diabetes.

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The study, by a joint team from the US National Jewish Medical and Research Center and University of Colorado, classed normal weight as someone with a body mass index below 25, overweight over 25 but below 30, and obese as 30 and above.

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What's more, the body mass index (BMI) of overweight people tended to rise as the gap between their weekday and weekend "time zones" widened.

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They had an average body mass index of 28, which is considered overweight.

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"It depends on who comments are being levelled at - to a class of children, where there will be a distribution of body sizes, it is important to know being overweight can lead to diabetes, but it is more of a psychological issue than a health issue - and children can be extremely cruel, " he says.

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More than two out of three Americans are overweight, averaging 23 pounds heavier than the ideal body weight.

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Dr. Xu's team showed that the virtual patient, using more sophisticated modeling such as how fat is distributed in the body, can provide more accurate calculations of how much additional radiation an overweight person requires.

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Body Mass Index (BMI) is defined as the ratio of weight (in kg) to height (in meters) squared and is an inexact measure of body fat, though it supposedly establishes cutoff points of normal weight, overweight, and obesity.

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Dr David Haslam, of the National Obesity Forum, said the finding cast new doubt on the merits of Body Mass Index (BMI) as a way to assess whether somebody was unhealthily overweight, as it did not differentiate between different types of fat.

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