Try our new BMI calculator for adults to compute your overall health.
Body Mass Index (BMI) is commonly used to provide a rough estimate of a person’s body fat. But, be careful, because BMI is often used incorrectly.
Are you overweight or carrying too much fat on your body? One method that many people use to determine if they are overweight is to use something called the BMI indicator.
If you know your height and body weight, the following handy BMI calculator can be used to tell you whether you are underweight, normal weight, overweight, or obese.
BMI Calculator For Men and Women
This NHS healthy weight calculator is programmed for adult weights.
Calculate Your BMI
As seen in the above calculator, the BMI calculator for men and women is often used to classify you as being underweight, normal weight, or obese.
Underweight BMI for men, below 18.5
Normal BMI for men, 18.5 – 24.9
Overweight BMI for men, 25.0 – 29.9
Obese BMI for men, over 30.0
Short History Of The Body Mass Index
It is interesting to note that, when BMI was created, it was not meant to be used on diagnosing individuals. It was meant to be used in comparing the boy fats of population, as a whole.
In other words, it is extremely useful as a shorthand way of comparing the relative body fat of American men versus men from Switzerland. However, it is an extremely poor and inappropriate tool when used to compare the body fat of Bob to Ted.
BMI has become so popular that even some physicians use it, without thinking, to diagnose weight disorders and prescribe corrective treatments.
BMI Measurements And Muscle Mass
If you happened to have a highly muscular build, your BMI measurements are more likely to misrepresent your actual level of fitness. This is because muscle weighs more than fat. And two people with the same weight can have dramatically different health outlooks depending on the percentage of Fat to Muscle in their body.
BMI Calculation Formula – How To Measure BMI
The non-metric formula for calculating BMI is as follows:
BMI = weight (lb) * 703 / (height in inches) x (height in inches)