BMI is an estimate of body fat and a good measure of your patients' risk for diseases

that can occur with overweight and obesity. For adults, a healthy weight is defined as
the appropriate body weight in relation to height. This ratio of weight to height is
known as the body mass index (BMI). People who are overweight (BMI of 2529.9)
have too much body weight for their height. People who are obese (BMI of 30 or
above) almost always have a large amount of body fat in relation to their height. The
higher the BMI, the higher the risk for heart disease, high blood pressure, type 2
diabetes, gallstones, osteoarthritis, sleep apnea, and certain cancers (e.g., colon,
breast, endometrial, and gallbladder).

Although BMI can be used for most men and women, it does have some limits:

It may overestimate body fat in athletes and others who have a muscular build.

It may underestimate body fat in older persons and others who have lost
muscle.

BMI for children and teens, 2 to 20 years old, is determined by using a BMI table that
compares their weight and height along with growth charts. The growth charts use a
child's BMI, age, and gender to produce a BMI percentile. A child or teen who is
between the 85th and 95th percentile on the growth chart is considered overweight. A
child or teen who is at the 95th percentile or above is considered obese.
BMI ranges

For most adults, an ideal BMI is in the 18.5 to 24.9 range.

For children and young people aged 2 to 18, the BMI calculation takes into account age and gender as well as
height and weight.

If your BMI is:

below 18.5 you're in the underweight range

between 18.5 and 24.9 you're in the healthy weight range
between 25 and 29.9 you're in the overweight range
between 30 and 39.9 you're in the obese range

If you wish to calculate your BMI, you need to plug all of your height and weight details into the BMI index
formula.

This is very straightforward; essentially, the formula works out to mean that you divide your weight in
kilograms by the square of your height in metres.
Being overweight or obese can have a serious impact on health. Carrying extra fat leads to serious health
consequences such as cardiovascular disease (mainly heart disease and stroke), type 2 diabetes,
musculoskeletal disorders like osteoarthritis, and some cancers (endometrial, breast and colon). These
conditions cause premature death and substantial disability.

What is not widely known is that the risk of health problems starts when someone is only very slightly
overweight, and that the likelihood of problems increases as someone becomes more and more overweight.
Many of these conditions cause long-term suffering for individuals and families. In addition, the costs for the
health care system can be extremely high.

The good news is that overweight and obesity are largely preventable. The key to success is to achieve an
energy balance between calories consumed on one hand, and calories used on the other hand.

To reach this goal, people can limit energy intake from total fats and shift fat consumption away from
saturated fats to unsaturated fats; increase consumption of fruit and vegetables, as well as legumes, whole
grains and nuts; and limit their intake of sugars. And to increase calories used, people can boost their levels of
physical activity - to at least 30 minutes of regular, moderate-intensity activity on most days.

Experts have expressed uncertainty about relying too heavily on BMI, stressing that it is not an accurate
measure of body fat or health.8

BMI fails to take age and sex into account. Women naturally tend to have more body fat than men of equal
BMI, while older people tend to have more body fat than younger people with the same BMI.

Furthermore, BMI measurements have no way of measuring where body fat is located in the body. Studies
have indicated that belly fat - the fat surrounding abdominal organs - is more dangerous than peripheral fat
beneath the skin in other body areas.

If you are obese according to BMI, you are most likely obese according to body fat percentage also. When
sampling from the general population, over 95% of men and 99% of women identified as obese by BMI were
also obese via body fat levels.10

Individuals who are very muscular such as bodybuilders or those that have very little muscle definition
may not receive an accurate BMI reading by using height and weight measurements alone. Muscle
weighs more than fat. Hence a muscular person may appear to have a higher BMI and be perfectly
healthy, or a frail, inactive person may appear to have a lower BMI and in reality have more body fat
than is healthy.7,12

Those who have enough lean mass to be classified as obese by BMI but not by body fat percentage, are far
and few in society. These persons would normally be highly active athletes, and it is unlikely sedentary
persons or those with infrequent exercise habits would fall into this category.10

If you are normal weight or overweight according to BMI (18.5-29.9) there is still a chance you are actually
obese, which is primarily due to low levels of lean mass (muscle, water and glycogen).

BMI also does not account for lactating or pregnant women, children and teenagers who have not reached
physical maturity and are still growing, and a tendency for natural differences in height and weight ratios
between races.

The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute suggests that an assessment of weight and health risks involves
using three key measures:9