By Chris Pleasance
PUBLISHED: 04:26 EST, 18 October 2013 | UPDATED: 04:57 EST, 18 October 2013
Just 11 per cent of Asian-Americans are obese but doctors have said they are at a high risk of heart disease because of the way their bodies store fat.
Asians' bodies are more likely to be apple-shaped, storing fat around their waist which can lead to it penetrating the liver, and are more likely to pack fat in between organs.
For most people a body mass index (BMI) of over 25 is considered overweight, but Asian people have been known to develop fat-related illnesses with a BMI of just 19 - which is technically underweight.
Speaking to NBC News, Dr. Karen Kim, a professor of medicine at the University of Chicago, said: 'It looks as if we don't have a problem. But it's a huge problem.
'There are huge differences where weight does not adequately reflect the realities of complications from being overweight.
'For Asians, you do not have to be overweight to get the complications for obesity.'
Figures published in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey show that 10.8 per cent of Asians are obese, compared to 33 per cent of whites, 42 per cent of Hispanics or 48 per cent of black people.
But that is likely to be masking a problem in the Asian community, leading people to falsely believe that they are healthier than they actually are.
Scott Chan, program director for the Asian Pacific Islander Obesity Prevention Alliance, says he has encountered funding issues because of the misleading statistics and even has trouble convincing his own family to live healthier lives.
He said: 'The attitude among many Asian-Americans is 'I'm skinny, and I'm Asian, I should be fine - I don't have to worry about obesity and diabetes.''
The National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey has also been criticised for defining Asian too broadly, masking problems in specific cultures or social groups.
The survey classed somebody as Asian if they had descendants from Cambodia, China, India, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Pakistan, the Philippine Islands, Thailand and Vietnam, among others.
That definition applies to over a third of the world population and can hide regional trends.
For example Filipino adults are 70 percent more likely to be obese than the rest of the Asian-American population - but about one in 10 Vietnamese and Korean adults is underweight.
Mr Chan added: 'Combined together, it looks like we don't have a problem, it kind of propagates that 'model minority' myth - that Asians are healthier, we're skinny, we're fine.'
BMI is a figure calculated by comparing a person's weight and height. A BM of less than 20 is considered underweight, 20-25 is in the normal range, 25-30 classes a person as overweight and a BMI of 30 or higher is considered obese.
It is still the standard method by which doctors calculate obesity, but has been discredited for being overly-simplistic, diagnosing some professional athletes as overweight.
Health experts have said that a more helpful benchmark for measuring obesity in any population may be to consider waist circumference and fat distribution, both of which are highly correlated with metabolic syndrome.
