A Look At Just How To Calculate Your BMI Formula
BMI or the body mass index looks at body fat levels and a variety of tools can then be used to determine your weight relative compared with the population as a whole. Here’s a look at how to calculate your BMI.
The Basic BMI Calculation
The equation below requires an accurate measurement of a person’s height and weight. Once you’ve got that, plug it in to the equation to determine your BMI.
BMI (in kg/m2) = weight in kilograms/height in meters2
There are many free BMI calculators on the internet that can do this for you. Check out the site Find Me A Workout for an easy to use one.
Interpreting The Results
Once you’ve got hold of a BMI value, you need to know just what it means. The bullet points below list different BMI ranges and the weight each corresponds to.
- Underweight – less than 18.5
- Normal weight – 18.5 up to 25
- Overweight – 25 up to 30
- Obese – over 30
It’s important to note that these BMI ranges and weight classifications are only for men and women over 20 years old. But for this demographic, it gives a very good, albeit not perfect, indicator of whether someone is underweight or overweight or not.
The classifications are important from a health perspective, because there is a greater risk of someone for example developing a range of health problems once they become overweight.
These conditions include a number of cancers, heart disease, stroke and type II diabetes to name some of the more common risks. It should be stated though that just having a BMI over 25 doesn’t provide a diagnosis of being overweight as such. It’s just an indicator. A detailed assessment and further tests would need to be carried out to clarify that.
But for most of us, it’s certainly a good initial measure, and will provide a motivational tool to seek to move in to the normal range if one is outside it, through changes in diet and exercise patterns.
What About Teenagers And Children
For people under the age of 20, there is a different set of charts and tables that need to be referred to to determine relative weights. They differ from adults because there are some marked differences across different ages under 20 in health body fat levels, and indeed across boys and girls too.
