Hyderabad-based Woxsen University researchers develop AI-based obesity risk detector

According to the researchers, the healthcare sector, online medical repositories and hospitals were generating vast amounts of data, providing valuable resources for researchers to explore and leverage AI techniques to address real-life health issues

Hyderabad: An Artificial Intelligence (AI)-based prediction model to detect obesity risk has been developed by Hyderabad-based Woxsen University researchers alongside a US Scientist.

The researchers – Bobba Bharath Reddy, Dr. Hemachandran Kannan and Dr. Shahid Mohammad Ganie, along with US Scientist Prof. Manjeet Rege – explored how combining multiple machine learning methods can predict the risk of obesity based on lifestyle data.

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According to the researchers, the healthcare sector, online medical repositories and hospitals were generating vast amounts of data, providing valuable resources for researchers to explore and leverage AI techniques to address real-life health issues.

The researchers explained they selected three algorithms from each ensemble method, each possessing distinct characteristics and strengths, to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed model from multiple perspectives.

While BMI (body mass index) is commonly used as the primary indicator of obesity risk, the researchers observed that the BMI has limitations in capturing the full complexity of obesity, which is influenced by behavioural, environmental, and genetic factors.

They noted that BMI does not account for critical health indicators such as muscle mass, fat distribution, or other variables, potentially reducing the precision of obesity classification.

The research findings were published in a paper titled ‘Investigation of Ensemble Learning Techniques for Obesity Risk Prediction Using Lifestyle Data’ in the Decision Analytics Journal by Elsevier.