Body Mass Index, or BMI, is considered one of the easiest ways to determine when those extra pounds are going to translate into health risks. It takes your weight and your height, and shows body weight adjusted for height. Someone with a BMI below 18.5 is considered underweight, while someone ranging from a BMI of 18.5 to 24.9 is considered normal, and from 25 to 29.9 you are overweight, and finally above 30 is obese.

To calculate your BMI, you can either use one of the many free calculators online by searching for BMI at Google, or you can do the math yourself.

BMI = Weight in Pounds / (Height in inches x Height in inches) x 703

or for those of you using Metric:

BMI = Weight in Kilograms / (Height in Meters x Height in Meters)

What does all this mean to you? If you have a BMI of 31, are you going to fall over and die tomorrow? Nope. It is just a means to quickly letting you know what health problems you might be opening yourself up for. If you are obese, you are much more likely to have certain heart problems, than someone that falls in the normal range, just because of the extra weight you are carrying around.

There are other ways to measure obesity and body fat percentages including calipers (skin-fold measurement), underwater weighing, bioelectrical impedance, and computerized topography. However, these methods are very expensive, need highly trained personnel, and are not readily available to the public or general clinical settings, but at the same time they can be much more precise about how problematic your weight may be to your general health.

One of the reasons why people don’t like the BMI system is that people with highly developed muscles can fall into the overweight category, where visually you can tell that they are not overweight, but since muscle weighs more than fat, their BMI calculations are thrown off.

BMI is just one of many factors related to developing a chronic disease (such as heart disease, cancer, or diabetes). Other factors that may be important to look at when assessing your risk for chronic disease include:

• Diet
• Physical Activity
• Waist Circumference
• Blood Pressure
• Blood Sugar Level
• Cholesterol Level
• Family History of Disease

So remember, while BMI can be a helpful tool, it does not replace your doctor, and if you do the calculation and realize you are in the obese category, it might be time to work on shedding some of those pounds before one of your organs give up on you, unless you have muscles that could easily win you the World Weightlifting Competition.

Tags: BMI, health