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BMI Calculator
BMI Calculator
Check your Body Mass Index
You are extremely light for your height. You should go to your doctor for an examination and consultation. This will establish whether your weight represents a problem with your health. A low weight can indicate a psychological problem. Has something changed in your life? Since when have you been eating so little? Are you feeling stressed or depressed? Discuss your problems with your doctor or a specialist, who will help you to resolve your issues.
You are light for your height. If you are healthy, things are going well and you are enjoying life, then that is fine. However, if you are often tired, depressed and lacking in motivation, or have been eating little over an extended period of time, you should go to your doctor for an examination, to rule out any health problems which may be causing this.
Congratulations, your weight is normal for your height. Continue to ensure that you have a balanced diet and are doing enough exercise in your day-to-day life.
You are slightly overweight. A change in diet as well as exercise 3-4 times a week for at least 30 minutes can help you to improve your BMI. Your pharmacist or chemist will be happy to advise you.
You are overweight. Consult your doctor, pharmacist or chemist for advice and support, and integrate a balanced diet and sufficient exercise into your day-to-day life.
Table of BMI values:
Categories
Male
Female
Underweight
< 20
< 19
Normal weight
20 – 25
19 – 24
Overweight
25 – 30
24 – 30
Obese
30 – 40
30 – 40
Severely obese
> 40
> 40
Recommendet BMI values for the different age groups:
Age
Body Mass Index
19 – 24
19 – 24
25 – 34
20 – 25
35 – 44
21 – 26
45 – 54
22 – 27
55 – 64
23 – 28
> 64
24 – 29
The Body Mass Index (BMI) was originally introduced in the 1840s by a Belgian mathematician named Lambert Adolphe Jacques Quetelet. Quetelet gathered information on the height and weight of different populations and although he had no particular interest in the study of obesity, he noticed that the weight increases as the square of the height for normal adults . In 2013, a member of Oxford University, Nick Trefethen, came up with an improved alternative formula for the BMI. Trefethen proposed the approach of putting height to the power of 2.5 and scale the result by multiplying it by 1.3. It is this approach that is now widely used for the BMI calculation.
The BMI isn't optimal for very tall or very short people. The BMI is designed specifically to provide accurate data on body weight and obesity in large samples of the general population. A very short person may receive a high BMI result therefore classifying them as "overweight" although they might not be. Conversely, a very tall person may receive a low BMI result and therefore may be incorrectly classified as "underweight".
The BMI is not the best measure of body composition among athletes as the BMI is based solely on a person's height and weight. It takes no account of body-fat percentage, muscle mass or bone thickness. In muscular body types the BMI may show as being overweight even though the individuals are lean and healthy. Particularly bodybuilders and other muscle-heavy athletes should rely on other methods to determine if they are at a healthy weight.
BMI scores should be treated with caution if they are used to draw conclusions about the distribution of body fat in relation to cardiovascular diseases. In those scenarios it is recommended to use the measurement of the abdominal girth as a supporting indicator.
Since the BMI does not differentiate between fat mass and water, adults suffering from oedema might also see a falsely high BMI.
On his travels Alfred Vogel studied the diets of people who were still living a primitive way of life. He was looking for 'convincing ideas and arguments' to support his theory that these people rarely or never suffered from the so-called diseases of civilization such as rheumatism, gout, hyperacidity, cancer or heart attacks. Nutrition - an important requirement for health
