All That You Needed To Know About Body Mass Index (bmi)

By Author: Arijit Roul
Total Articles: 64
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The Body Mass Index (BMI) gained popularity only in the late eighties and it is an easy way to know whether you are obese or not. The earlier practice of knowing whether a person was obese or overweight was by using the height- weight tables. But, nowadays this process is replaced by the popular BMI method of calculation to find out if a person is having an ideal weight or not.

Are You Obese?

Most of the people living in this day and age are living a hectic and fast paced life. They do not have the time to spend on their health and to do regular exercise to keep their body fit. As obesity and being overweight is one of the main worries of many people these days, more and more people are now interested in knowing what their Body Mass Index is. The sedentary lifestyle that people are practicing these days, unhealthy eating habits, eating a lot of junk foods and not eating at the appropriate time daily are some of the reasons that are making a lot of people to become obese. If you too are worried whether you are obese or overweight, then you can use the BMI methodology to determine whether you are overweight ...
... or obese or have an ideal weight for your height.

What Is BMI?

The Body Mass Index is a common and standard tool that is used to find out if a person is obese or not. The same calculations are done for both men and women to determine their body mass index numbers and this will help in finding out if a person is obese or not. The height- weight tables that were used before to find out the obesity in a man or a woman had different charts. But, in this case it is all the same. Only people who are over 20 years of age can take these tests to determine if they are overweight or not.

How BMI Is Calculated?

Like the earlier method used for calculating obesity, even here we use the height and the weight of a person to determine his or her Body Mass Index number. But, the calculation procedure is very simple and straight forward and anyone can easily find out his or her BMI. It is determined by a formula which is the person’s weight in kilograms divided by the square of the height of the person in meters (this is for the metric system). It is also calculated as the weight in pounds divided by the square of the height in inches in the US.

BMI Results

The following are the details to determine if your Body Mass Index number tells you are obese or overweight or underweight.
• If your BMI is under 18.5, then you are underweight.
• If your BMI is from 18.5 to 25, then you are normal.
• If your BMI ranges from 25 to 30, then you are overweight.
• If your BMI is from 30 to 40, then you are obese
• If our BMI is greater than 40, then you are morbidly obese.

There are many health & wellness and informative sites that will help you out with calculating your Body Mass Index or BMI very easily.