Body Mass Index

Body Mass Index (BMI)

Body mass index measures a persons body fat based on their weight compared to their height. BMI is used as a tool to tell whether a person is underweight, overweight, obese, or a healthy weight, for their height. BMI is also a tool to help you see whether or not your weight is increasing your chance for health risks and diseases (medicalnewstoday.com). If your range is under 18.5, you are considered to be underweight. If you're between 18.5 and 24.9 then you are within a healthy range. If you are between 25 and 29.9 then you're considered to be overweight. And 30 or higher is considered obese (webmd.com). If you are underweight, overweight, or obese then you may want to talk to your doctor about risk factors or even treatments to help you, such as eating better, or extra activities, such as exercising. If your body mass index is not in the healthy range, then your chance of health risks may increase. Some health risks include hypertension, type 2 diabetes, Coronary heart disease, stroke, gallbladder disease, and even some cancers.

There are two ways that you can find your BMI. The first way is to use a BMI chart, and the second way is to use a formula. There are two formulas you can use. The first one you take your weight in kilograms and divide by your height in meters, squared. This is also for the metric formula. For the second formula, you take your weight in pounds and multiply by 703, then divide by your height in inches, squared. This is called the imperial BMI formula (medicalnewstoday.com).

A study that was published in the Journal Pediatrics says that the neck circumference could be used instead of the body mass index. Neck circumference has been studied for potential obesity and heart problems in adults. According to research, a wide neck circumference is associated with obesity-related conditions such as diabetes and hypertension (cnn.com).

Some studies also shown that waist circumference was used as well as body mass...