How to Stay Healthy Using BMI

Calculating a person's BMI or Body Mass Index can tell whether they are underweight, overweight or within a normal range. Knowing your BMI can help you to plan your exercise regimen and diet.

Instructions

Difficulty: Easy

Things You’ll Need:

• Calculator

1. Find out what your BMI is. You can find an online calculator or use a a regular calculator. Divide your weight in pounds by your height squared. For example, a person who is 66 inches tall and weighs 155 lbs. would divide 155 by 4356. Take that number and multiply it by 703. The BMI for our hypothetical person would be 25.01.
2. Look to see where your BMI falls on the BMI range chart. Underweight people have BMIs less than 18.5. BMI numbers between 18.5 and 24.9 are normal, more than 25.0 and less than 29.0 are overweight. BMIs that are 30.0 or above are considered obese. Our hypothetical person in Step 1 is in the overweight range, but just barely. He should mind his diet and develop a regular exercise routine.
3. Remember that calculating your BMI does not reveal the percentage of body fat you're carrying. However, BMI value and percentage of body fat will correlate in many cases. Men usually have a lower percentage of body fat than women and younger people usually have less body fat than seniors.
4. Keep your BMI in the normal range to lower your risk of disease. Increased risk of chronic diseases, such as diabetes, heart disease and cancer, directly corresponds with high BMI numbers. If your BMI is higher than it should be, a 10 percent reduction in weight will lower your disease risk.

Tips & Warnings

• Increasing your muscle mass will result in a higher BMI, but does not necessarily mean that you are less healthy.
• Don't rely on your BMI alone to determine if you are healthy. To assess disease risk, use other important tests that your doctor recommends.