Podcast/Video Interviews by Stephen Ibaraki
A Chat with Richard Barnes: Founder & CEO of Select Research; Inventor of the Body Volume Index (BVI)
Sector: Health Technology / Digital Health / Body Measurement
Company: Select Research, Malvern, Worcestershire, UK
Website: https://www.bodyvolume.com/
App: myBVI (iOS & Android)
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/richard-barnes/
This week, Stephen Ibaraki has an exclusive interview with Richard Barnes, Founder & CEO of Select Research; Inventor of the Body Volume Index (BVI).
WHO IS RICHARD BARNES?
Richard Barnes is the founder and CEO of Select Research Ltd, a UK based health technology company and pioneers in 3D measurement of the body since 1996. Richard is the inventor of the Body Volume Index (BVI); a clinically validated, image based alternative to the Body Mass Index (BMI).
Richard's route to health technology was unconventional. After graduating in Law in 1982 he spent twelve years in marketing research, becoming a Director of Research Operations at Research International and TNS (now merged as Kantar, one of the world's largest research agencies). In 1995 he founded Select Research, which expanded substantially over 30 years as its 3D engineering and measurement capabilities developed and expanded.
It was this expertise in 3D measurement that set the stage for BVI. In the late 1990s, Select was commissioned by Next and later Marks & Spencer to undertake major national sizing surveys using 3D scanners to create 'baseline' sizing standards for clothing. In 2001, Richard managed Size UK in 2001, the first-ever national sizing survey in the world, and commissioned by the UK Government and then Shape GB in 2008, the National Childrenswear Survey, sponsored by six major UK retailers. These projects gave him, and Select, a unique, data-driven understanding of how human body shape varies and how poorly conventional measures captured it.
THE ORIGIN STORY OF BVI
The 'Lightbulb' Moment
The idea for BVI came to Richard in February 2000, while working on a childrenswear project for Marks & Spencer. People kept on mentioning of childhood obesity and wondered how it was measured? The answer was the Body Mass Index, or BMI. When he investigated BMI more, he found out that it measured only height and weight and was invented in 1835. Richard had spent his professional life measuring the human body in three dimensions, a question nagged at him, why was there no meaningful measurement for obesity? BMI, the global standard, tells you nothing about body shape, or where weight is on the body.
The First Steps
In 2004, Richard arranged a meeting with the Medical Research Council (MRC),a leading UK Government Scientific Body, to discuss his idea, explore potential other collaborators and to test whether the concept held clinical weight. The MRC knew that BMI didn't work and were on board immediately, becoming one of the earliest and most important collaborators.
As the concept of weight distribution and partial weight measurement was such a unique and new concept, Richard also filed the BVI patent in 2006 to protect the idea, granted in 2012. This covers the BVI methodology in two major healthcare markets:
- US Patent: US8,374,671
- European Patent: EP1,993,443 B1
The link with Mayo Clinic
In 2006, Richard came across a landmark paper published in The Lancet by researchers at the Mayo Clinic's Division of Cardiovascular Diseases:
Romero-Corral et al. (2006). Association of bodyweight with total mortality and with cardiovascular events in coronary artery disease: a systematic review of cohort studies. The Lancet, 368(9536), 666–678.
The study analysed data from 250,152 patients with coronary artery disease across 40 cohort studies. Its finding was stark: BMI showed no consistent ability to predict cardiovascular mortality. Overweight patients had better survival outcomes than those classified as normal weight. BMI, the paper concluded, lacked the discriminatory power to differentiate between fat mass and lean mass.This paper has been cited in over 2,200 other scientific and academic papers, to reflect the importance of their statement and findings.
In 2007 Richard flew to Rochester, Minnesota to meet the Mayo Clinic team who wrote the 2006 paper directly, and they were on board with BVI straight away. That relationship, between a Worcestershire entrepreneur and one of the world's most respected healthcare institutions, has continued for over 20 years. Mayo Clinic have now published numerous scientific papers to underpin the credibility of BVI. No with Mayo Clinic and the MRC committed, Richard began systematically building a wider network of collaborators needed to develop, test, and validate the technology.
The public launch of BVI in March 2007
On 27th March 2007, BVI was publicly announced at the Royal College of Physicians in London, where leading health experts argued that healthcare needed something better than BMI. BBC News and the international press covered the story. The mission to replace BMI had begun.
The 60+ Collaborators on BVI
Over subsequent years, the BVI has been tested, validated and used with and by over 60 organisations across the world. From healthcare, with retailers and with prestigious Universities, Richard and his team at Select have fostered relationships across the world. Institutions such as the Department for Business & Trade, Lycra, Next, University of Cambridge, University of Toronto, Tesco, NHS Imperial College, Health Innovation Network and many more have all been involved over the years.
The Science: Why BMI Fails and How BVI Is Different
BMI (Body Mass Index) was developed by the Belgian mathematician Adolphe Quetelet in the 1830s as a statistical tool for describing population distributions. It was never designed to assess individual health risk. Yet it remains the default clinical tool used by healthcare systems worldwide.
The core problem is that BMI uses only height and weight. It cannot distinguish between fat and muscle, and it cannot tell you where fat is stored in the body. Two people can have identical BMI scores and one person has a healthy body composition, and another could have dangerous levels of visceral fat around the abdominal organs. BMI assigns them the same risk category.
BVI addresses this by measuring body volume and body shape using 3D data. It captures:
- Total body volume
- Abdominal volume and fat distribution
- Visceral fat levels
- Waist-to-height ratio
- Body shape classification
- Personalised cardiometabolic health risk prediction
Crucially, BVI is designed to be as deployable as BMI, and no specialist clinic, or expensive equipment needed. The myBVI smartphone app generates body composition analysis.
Examples of where BVI technology using the new 'smartphone' and 'tablet' system are:-
The myBVI App
BVI is now available to consumers globally through myBVI, a smartphone application for iOS and Android. The app uses two photographs taken on a standard smartphone to generate:
- Body fat percentage and distribution
- Visceral fat level
- Abdominal volume and waist-to-height ratio
- Body shape classification
- Personalised health risk prediction
No clinic visit, no specialist hardware, and no DEXA scan is required. The entire process takes under two minutes.
Download myBVI (iOS): App Store
Download myBVI (Android): Google Play