BMI(Body Mass Index) is simply a measurement which helps to determine if one is underweight, healthy weight, overweight or obese.
It’s a guide which uses an individual’s height and weight to determine if one is in his/her correct weight range.
I chose to bring this information to you all today, because of the different confused perception of this concept. The other day, I overheard a group of persons arguing over who is underweight, healthy weight, overweight, and obese.
While some muscular individuals get confused with their BMI; parents on the other hand gets worried with their child/ children BMI. As almost everyone is not aware of the limitations involved in using BMI.
Is no longer a surprise that most persons does not know how to calculate their BMI; not to talk of how to determine if they are underweight,healthy weight, overweight or obese.
Below, I am going to point out on the following about BMI;
-Brief history
-Parameters needed to calculate BMI
-How to calculate BMI
-How to determine underweight, healthy weight, overweight and obese
-Exceptions and limitations to BMI usage.
BMI was created by a Belgian statistician by name Adolphe Quetelet. Then, it was commonly known as “The Quetelet Index of Obesity”. This was used to determine obesity by dividing a person’s weight(in kilograms) by the square of his/her height(in meter square).BMI measurement has remained popular for all these years and still remains one of the most popular weight measurements.
Body fat, bone and frame size, muscle and body type are not included in the formula for working out BMI. The formula for working out BMI is to take your height in meters squared and divide your weight in kilograms by that number…
…Let’s do an example: If you are 1.86 meters tall, you would do 1.86 times 1.86 (1.86 x 1.86) which equals 3.72. If you weigh 87 kilograms, you would divide 87 by 3.72 which equals 23.65 as your BMI. This is in the healthy weight range which is from 18.50 to 24.9.
Coincidentally, I just used my statistics for the above example; Though, I am a bit muscular…
…Next, is How to determine if one is under, healthy, overweight or obese.
—Below 18.50 is Underweight
—18.60-24.90 is Healthy weight
—25.00-29.90 is Overweight
—30.00 and Above is Obese
BMI Chart
BMI is one of the most popular tools that people use to determine whether they are in a healthy weight range. Because body fat and lean muscle tissue don’t figure into the equation at all, many experts believe that BMI is not at all accurate for some people.
Generally you can get an idea of whether you are in a healthy weight range by how much body fat you have and also by your general health. BMI can be a little trickier however than working out your healthy weight range using body fat.
The reason that BMI is not always accurate is because if you have a lot of muscle then your BMI might not be right…
Muscles weighs a lot more than fat but will take up less space than fat so some people can have a lot of muscle but they don’t look all that big. BMI doesn’t take this muscle weight into account. If an athlete, football player, body builder, wrestler or anyone that gains a lot of muscle through their exercise routine, will actually calculate a BMI that puts them in the overweight or obese range. So BMI isn’t accurate for people who have a lot of weight in muscle…
…but what about everyone else?
Children don’t get an accurate BMI and also very tall people might not get an accurate BMI either due to the weight of their longer bones. So generally, if you are extremely tall, a child or have a lot of muscle then BMI may not be a good way to measure your weight range.
Though, BMI are mainly for adolescents and adults. And the cases of being extremely tall or very much muscular is rare as well.
However, BMI still remains one of the best way to determine if one is Underweight, healthy weight, overweight or obese.
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Francis Eze
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