If you ever felt like naming something about body mass index, or BMI, in this article you will find all the answers and tips to know what we are talking about when we say BMI and you can even calculate your body mass index.
BMI stands for Body Mass Index. It is used so that you can have an idea about body weight, to know if you are underweight, overweight or an ideal weight according to your height. It’s helpful to keep these data in mind because if your weight increases or decreases outside of the ideal range, the health risks may increase.
How is BMI calculated?
Formula for calculating BMI (body mass index)
BMI refers to the measure by which weight is related to height. In the image above you can see how the calculation of that measurement would be, but it is also not necessary that you be a mathematician to use this measurement, since there are tools with which you can measure the BMI very easily, in the following link you will find an online calculator. This measurement is one of the most used indicator signals of overweight and obesity.
In the online BMI calculator, you must enter your height and weight. Select „Calculate“ to calculate your BMI and see what your result might mean. At the bottom of the calculator, you can see what each value indicates.
How accurate is the BMI?
BMI is a useful measure for most people who are over the age of 18. However, it may have some limitations that must be taken into account, as it can be influenced by age, gender, and bone structure and muscle mass.
The best thing to do is always to contact a nutrition specialist who can make a more complete evaluation to be sure of our body mass index levels, however the value that the BMI test can show can be helpful to have a closer approximation. real.
If you are pregnant, the BMI cannot be applied to you. And to evaluate the ideal weight of a pregnant woman it is better to consult a specialist.
In general, the body mass indices can be measured in a standard or normal body, but there is the possibility that your body has more weight but in the muscular structure, and then the measurement is not very exact since the BMI cannot distinguish this factor and can evaluate muscle weight as weight due to accumulated fat in the body.
However, before going into the various limitations that the body mass index measure can present, it should be noted that the measure is very useful in large populations, since it correlates well with the degree of adiposity, and of course it is very easy to measure in clinical practice.
1. BMI does not differentiate between a muscular body and a fat body
Body mass index can be relative; since, as we mentioned before, fat mass and muscle weight are not distinguished. But the vast majority of the general population with a BMI in the range of overweight or obesity, their bodies do not look like that of bodybuilders or athletes with spectacular muscles. For this reason, the data of this measure can be very useful for the common people.
2. BMI does not differentiate the distribution of fat
For more than 60 years, we have known that regardless of how heavy a person is, their body weight distribution, or more generally their body shape, is a key indicator of health risk.
It is now well established that individuals who deposit much of their body weight around their midsection, and are in the so-called „apple shape,“ have a much higher risk of excess weight disease in contrast to those with the so-called pear-shaped, which carry your weight more peripherally, particularly in the lower body. Therefore, two individuals with a BMI of 32 kg/m2 could have drastically different body shapes, thus varying the risk of disease due to obesity or being overweight.
Efficient way to identify overweight
Fortunately, there is another very simple measure that allows you to decide if the result of the BMI measurement is really high, depending on whether your body is like that of an apple or a pear, and that is by measuring your waist circumference. Current thresholds suggest that a waist circumference above 88 cm in women and 102 cm in men denotes abdominal obesity.
Interestingly, for the same BMI level, those individuals with an elevated waist circumference are at increased risk for diabetes, cardiovascular disease, mortality, and numerous other health outcomes. Therefore, as studies in our laboratory have consistently suggested, waist circumference may be a more important measure of obesity risk and health than BMI. Currently, most researchers agree that waist circumference must be measured in conjunction with BMI to properly classify obesity-related health risks.
