East Steps For Calculating BMI

BMI is moderately simple to calculate but before they look at that, let's take a glance at BMI and what it actually is. BMI is short for Body Mass Index and this is a tool that was created in the 1800s to choose a persons weight range. The formula will give a result that will indicate whether a person is in a traditional weight range for their height or whether they are over or under weight. Although this formula was created 200 years ago, it is still widely used today.

There's some situations where BMI results won't be correct but usually for most people it will give an correct result. The issue with BMI is that it doesn't distinguish between fat and muscle so those people, like body builders, who have lots of muscle, their BMI results would not be correct. For most of us though, BMI will give us a nice idea of whether they are in a healthy weight range, underweight, fat or fat.

How to Calculate BMI

There is a basic formula that is used to calculate BMI and that is weight divided by height squared - kg/m2. You take your height (in meters) and square it, so you times it by itself. Then you divide the answer in to your weight (in kilograms).

The normal weight range is a BMI between 18.5 and 24.9. In case you fall below 18.5 then you would be underweight. In case you fall in the range of 25 to 29.9 then you would be thought about fat. If your BMI results was 30 or over then you are thought about fat. So now you can see how the answer they got above of 31 would put that person in the fat section.

Let's do an example so you can see exactly the way it works. If a person is one.7 meters tall they would times one.7 by one.7 which gives us an answer of two.89. Now if that person weights 90 kilograms they then divide the weight by the height squared, so that is 90 divided by two.89. This gives us a BMI of 31. A BMI of 31 would indicate that this person is fat.

In case you don't like to work in meters and kilograms there is another formula that you can use for pounds and feet. With this formula you take your weight in pounds and times it by four.88. Then you divide that number by your height in feet, squared. Let's work that out using a who is 200 pounds and 6 feet tall. You would times 200 by four.88 which is 976. Then you would take the height in feet and times it by itself, so 6 times 6 equals 36. Now take the weight answer of 976 and divide it by 36 which equals 27.1 - this is your BMI. A result of 27.1 would put a person in the fat range.

Let's do another example using the same height but a different weight. So the person is one.7 meters and one.7 squared is two.89. This time let's say that they weight 68 kilograms so they divide 68 by two.89 which gives us a BMI result of 23.5. This person would be within the normal weight range. You can use BMI calculations to choose how much weight you need to lose to be in a healthy range. With these examples, the person in the first example would need to lose around twenty kilograms to get down to a healthy weight range.

When calculating your BMI keep in mind to factor in whether you have lots of muscle or not as this can make the results inaccurate.