BMI calculator – calculating the correct body weight, norms, risk of diseases

The BMI calculator is the easiest and fastest way to calculate your correct body weight yourself. Thanks to it, we can quickly and easily learn the condition of our body fat and determine whether our lifestyle and diet are appropriate. What is the correct body weight, what does it depend on and what may be an incorrect BMI result? We check how to calculate BMI.

What is BMI?

BMI (Body Mass Index), otherwise known as the Quetelet index, is used to assess whether the body weight is correct. The Beligian statistician Adolf Queteleta developed the Body Mass Index in 1832. Then he noticed that body weight increased depending on the person’s height. The BMI index is a tool that allows you to find out whether our diet and lifestyle are appropriate, and whether we should go to a specialist asking for help. It is also the fastest way to the first medical diagnosis – BMI index control is used to monitor the health of our body.

People who want to lower a high BMI index can support the process of weight reduction by using a dietary supplement for metabolism of 400 mg berberine.

The BMI index is an uncomplicated mathematical formula that allows you to determine the amount of body fat in your body, based on the ratio of weight (kg) to height (meters). BMI for children and adolescents has been modified and plotted into percentile grids for girls and boys, respectively. A quick way to find out if your body weight is correct is to use it the BMI calculator below:

BMI Calculator Online

You wonder how to calculate BMI? The easiest way to check your healthy body mass index is the BMI calculator. It is enough to mark the gender in the empty fields and enter the current weight and height. After reading the result from the BMI calculator, you should compare it with the accepted norms. The result is indicative for us and does not allow us to analyze the general state of health. You also need to remember about other dietary indicators, chronic diseases, the body’s need for calories and nutrients, as well as factors such as age and gender.

Checking the indicator regularly is useful if you want to maintain your ideal weight. Calculating BMI helps you avoid the risk of obesity as well as various diseases related to being overweight or underweight.

How to calculate BMI?

Calculating BMI is based on taking into account three key pieces of information, the knowledge of which does not require any medical examinations. In order to check whether our body weight is correct, it must take into account weight, height and gender. The result in the BMI calculator is obtained by dividing the body weight in kilograms by the square of the height in centimeters. It is also taken into account whether the index is calculated by a woman or a man. This is very important information because, for biological reasons, the normal fat content in women is higher than in men. It is also accompanied by a smaller amount of muscles than in men.

Both sexes of similar height will have a similar BMI, but with a high probability the level of body fat in a woman will be higher than in a man. Keep in mind that your risk of disease is related to your body fat content, not your body weight alone. In addition, the distribution of this adipose tissue plays an important role. It is very dangerous to get fat on the internal organs. Determining the distribution of fat in the body requires the use of another indicator (WHR), the calculation of which, however, is not so simple or possible at home.

BMI formula

The formula used to calculate the BMI is shown below.

The BMI is given in kilograms per square meter (eg BMI 23 kg / m² is normal).

If the height of our BMI index is worrying, it is worth consulting a dietitian who will help us introduce appropriate changes to our diet and change our diet for the better. It is worth considering the option of arranging a safe consultation with a dietitian online.

BMI indicator

The BMI counter gives you the result according to the basic or extended adult classification. The former distinguishes between four different weight ratings, while the extended one also distinguishes three degrees of underweight and three degrees of obesity:

1. underweight (<8,5) - underweight (less than 18,5), emaciated (less than 17), starving (less than 16),
2. correct value (18,5-24,9),
3. overweight (25-29,9),
4. obesity (≥30) – 34,9st degree obesity (up to 39,9), 40nd degree obesity (up to XNUMX), XNUMXrd degree obesity (over XNUMX).

Due to the growing problem of obesity as a civilization disease, there was also a proposal to create a detailed division of obesity, which would include as many as 10 categories. In such a classification, grade X obesity would be highest, with an index of 100 or more. Such a wide BMI scale is a way to more accurately determine the risk of complications and to plan the treatment of people with morbid obesity.

The level of overweight or underweight can also be calculated using the modified body mass index – BMI Prime. It is calculated by dividing a person’s BMI by the upper limit of normal BMI, ie 25. If the resulting number is between 0,74 and 1, the weight is normal. A value below 0,74 indicates underweight, above 1 is overweight. The BMI Prime indicator allows, for example, a doctor to visually show the problem of overweight in a patient and quickly calculate how many kilograms he should lose so that his weight returns to normal.

1. See the offers of bathroom scales with BMI analysis

BMI – age

The older we are, the more our muscle mass and bone mass decrease. At the same time, the amount of adipose tissue most often increases. It should be taken into account that BMI does not record the aging process in the body. Therefore, BMI results in older people are often misinterpreted as better than they really are.

BMI index and muscle and bone mass

Many people wonder how much it should be normal BMI. Muscles are dense and much heavier than fat. No wonder that often two people with the same body weight look completely different in terms of appearance. This is due to the ratio of muscle mass to fat. Of course, the BMI does not take these differences into account. Contrary to appearances, people who practice sports regularly and who are well-built are often classified as overweight or even obese.

According to the BMI index, they are at risk of diabetes and heart disease, which of course is inconsistent with reality, because it is thanks to large muscle mass and an active lifestyle that it is possible to avoid unwanted diseases. Another factor influencing our body weight is degree of bone mineralization and density. The correct body weight will be completely different for people who are small and coarse-boned. In addition, the BMI does not take into account the fact that bone density decreases with age, and the elderly often suffer from osteoporosis, which lowers their body weight.

1. Read more about densitometry, which is the measurement of bone density.

Adult only BMI

The BMI index is calculated only taking into account certain standards adopted for a given population. There is no universal indicator for the ideal body weight, as it depends on race, gender, age, and sometimes profession – bodybuilders will have a different standard and athletes will have a different standard.

1. Having trouble calculating your BMI? Try a Beurer scale with BMI measurement

BMI calculator for children

BMI calculators are intended only for adults, i.e. people over 18 years of age. In children, percentile grids are used to help assess the proper physical development of the youngest. Although the BMI is calculated in a similar way for children and adults, the criteria used to analyze the score for children and adolescents are different from those for adults. This is due to two factors:

1. the amount of fat varies between boys and girls,
2. the amount of fat changes with age.

In the analysis of the body weight of children and adolescents, the correct content of adipose tissue depending on sex and age, as well as the relationship between body weight and height, is taken into account. Some form of BMI can be used for school age, but only includes boys and girls who have normal body fat. In practice, this means that BMI based on percentile grids is mainly used statistically in children. The assessment of the child’s health in the context of body weight should therefore include the measurement of adipose tissue content, for which the bioimpedance method is currently used.

BMI – profilaktyka

A BMI value above 30 is an alarm signal that should prompt us to contact a doctor. Diagnosing diseases such as ischemic heart disease, diabetes, bowel cancer and atherosclerosis at an early stage allows you to speed up the treatment process and effectively fight the diseases.

The BMI results at the other end of the scale should not be underestimated either. If your BMI is 17 or so, you are underweight, indicating an eating disorder such as anorexia. Possible causes of such underweight are also diseases, e.g. malabsorption disorders, endocrine problems, neoplastic, parasitic or infectious diseases (AIDS, tuberculosis). The result of BMI in the range of 16–17, which proves that you are thin (including advanced anorexia), is particularly alarming, while the result of less than 16 is in a critical situation (starvation).

An individually arranged diet by a professional may help. The service of creating an individual nutritional plan is offered, among others, by Arkmedic company. Such a solution will not only allow you to lose unnecessary kilograms, but also take care of your health properly.

Other dietary indicators

While the BMI calculator is a practical way to get an overall assessment of your body weight, it does not take into account a number of factors necessary for a complete health analysis. If we are not feeling well or our BMI is not within the normal range, additional indicators may be useful: WHR, PPM, CPM and PAL. It must be borne in mind that although there are online calculators, the most accurate measurement will be obtained by going to an appropriate specialist examination. Special methods and devices are used for this type of measurement of dietary indicators.

An important indicator that tells a lot about our health is WHR indicatorwhich takes into account the proportion of the waist circumference to the hip circumference. The most common obesity in women is buttock-femoral obesity, while in men it is abdominal obesity (fat is located around internal organs). Therefore, it may turn out that a woman, despite having more body fat, is less exposed to diseases than a man whose fat is stored around internal organs.

1. Learn more about the WHR – what is it, what information does it provide and what affects it?

Proper nutrition and maintaining an optimal body weight are two interrelated issues, but there is no uniform menu that will work well in each individual case. A lot depends on the predisposition of the body, including basic metabolism (PPM or BMR, or Basal Metabolic Rate). This indicator measures the caloric requirement of an individual based on the resting metabolic rate. The PPM value is influenced by a number of factors, including age, gender, height, current weight, metabolic type, and health status.

The easiest way to calculate your basal metabolic rate is to use the BMR calculator, which takes into account only the basic parameters. Specialized PPM measurements are direct calorimetry or indirect calorimetry. These methods make it possible to determine the amount of heat produced by the body over a period of time, which translates into the amount of energy used by the body. A related indicator is also CPM (total metabolism), which determines the daily energy requirement of the body.

We should also refer to the metabolic coefficients another value, which is PAL, i.e. the daily rate of physical activity. Its value may change depending on the day, type of activities performed and possible training sessions. For this reason, the PAL is best averaged over the entire week. On this basis, it is easier to assess whether our physical activity can be classified as low, moderate, high or very high.

A critical approach to the BMI index

There are also many criticisms about BMI. The most common accusations against the BMI are listed below.

1. The BMI was not invented by an obesity researcher, but by a statistician.
2. BMI was first developed 200 years ago.
3. BMI relates generally to the population, not to individuals. Although it was emphasized by the index creator, doctors and nutritionists still classify patients’ body weight based on the index score.
4. BMI does not take into account the mass of muscles and bones, which also affect our body weight.
5. According to some researchers, BMI is scientifically meaningless because there is no physiological basis for squaring height.
6. The BMI index is a mathematical formula and an attempt to describe reality.
7. There is a logical error in the definition of BMI, which concerns the misconception that the BMI index allows the assessment of body fat – it is inconsistent with reality. It was Quetelet who concluded that patients with a lot of body fat had a high BMI, not the other way around. People with a high BMI do not need to have a large amount of body fat, but only a high muscle or bone mass.
8. According to the researchers, setting strict ranges for normal weight, overweight and obesity by BMI is a wrong approach, because within a wide range of ideal weight you can be very thin and slightly fat (both are considered healthy people). When a person on the limit of normal weight puts on a kilogram, he is considered unhealthy, overweight.

The above-mentioned issues do not diminish the usefulness of the BMI formula, but indicate its limitations and the complexity of weight problems. Using only the body mass index is not sufficient, especially in the case of people with significant weight disorders or local obesity.

The content of the medTvoiLokony website is intended to improve, not replace, the contact between the Website User and their doctor. The website is intended for informational and educational purposes only. Before following the specialist knowledge, in particular medical advice, contained on our Website, you must consult a doctor. The Administrator does not bear any consequences resulting from the use of information contained on the Website. Do you need a medical consultation or an e-prescription? Go to halodoctor.pl, where you will get online help – quickly, safely and without leaving your home.