Body Fat

Summary: BMI is an important measurement to indicate your risk of hypertension, heart disease and premature death. Do you know your Body Mass Index?

The Body Mass Index (BMI) is a number that represents our body weight adjusted for our height and is used world wide to calculate obesity.

BMI is broken down into four categories: underweight, normal, overweight, and obese. The formula for calculating adult (20 years old and over) BMI is not a difficult one: simply divide your weight by your height squared and multiply by 703. Even easier – just go to the Center for Disease Control and plug in your height and weight into their BMI calculator.

(www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/dnpa/bmi/bmi-adult-formula.htm).

As BMI increases so does the risk for diseases such as hypertension, diabetes, heart disease, and premature death, so it’s important to know whether you’re just packing a few extra pounds or are at serious increased risk for any of these diseases.

While there are other methods of measuring obesity such as underwater weighing and skin calipers, using the BMI is reasonably accurate, is inexpensive, and does not require special instrumentation.

Author: Chuck Eglinton

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