BMI Calculation

 

Content

• What is the BMI?
• BMI formula and calculation
• Standards: what is a normal BMI?
• Female BMI vs. Male BMI: differences?

The body mass index or BMI allows you to know your ideal weight, in other words, if it is adapted to your height.

What is the formula to calculate it? What is a normal BMI? What are the standards for women? For men? For children? What is the BMI of an obese person? What are the limits of this calculation?

What is the BMI?

Invented in the 1840s, the body mass index or BMI allows us to know if your weight is ideal, in other words, if it is adapted to your height.

This indicator is used by doctors to evaluate nutritional status. It allows them to recognize malnutrition, thinness, overweight, or obesity. The calculation of the BMI, validated by the WHO, is based on a simple mathematical formula.

BMI formula and calculation

The body mass index (BMI) allows estimating the ideal weight according to height.

Its calculation is simple: it corresponds to the weight divided by the square of the height (BMI = weight in kg/height² in m).

The figure obtained is used to estimate the corpulence and possibly the overweight or obesity of an adult man or woman.

 

Standards: what is a normal BMI?

A normal BMI is between 18.5 and 25. Below 18.5, the individual is considered too thin. Above 25, the individual is overweight. Above 30, it is called obesity.

BMI < 18.5 kg/m²: underweight 18.5 < BMI < 24.9: normal weight 25 < BMI < 29.9 : overweight BMI > 30: obesity

For a BMI equal to or greater than 25kg/m² and less than 35kg/m², the clinical examination must be completed by measuring the waist circumference.

BMI < 18.5 kg/m²: underweight (thinness)

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Your weight appears too low in relation to your height. This low body mass index (BMI) may be the result of pathology, but it may itself expose you to a number of health risks (deficiencies, anemia, osteoporosis…).

Talk about it with your doctor. He or she will be able to find the cause of this thinness and advise you.

18.5 < BMI < 24.9: normal weight

Your weight is adapted to your height. Keep your eating habits to maintain an ideal body mass index (BMI) and a weight that ensures your optimal health.

A balanced diet, without excess fat, combined with regular physical activity will help you maintain your ideal weight.

25 < BMI < 29.9: overweight

Your weight is starting to become too high for your height. Over the long term, a high body mass index (BMI) has health consequences.

Excess weight leads to an increased risk of metabolic diseases (diabetes), heart disease, respiratory disease, joint disease, and cancer. If you want to start a diet to lose weight, talk to your doctor first.

BMI > 30: obesity

Your weight is too high for your height. From a medical point of view, obesity is an excess of fat mass that has consequences on health.

Excess weight leads to an increased risk of metabolic diseases (diabetes), heart disease, respiratory disease, joint disease, and cancer.

If you want to start a diet to lose weight, talk to your doctor first.

Note that the severity of obesity depends on the body mass index (BMI): it is said to be “moderate” for a BMI between 30 and 34.9, “severe” when the BMI is between 35 and 39.9 and “massive” for a BMI above 40.

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Female BMI vs. Male BMI: differences?

Is the BMI of a 20-year-old woman the same as the BMI of a 50-year-old woman? Is the formula the same for a man? The answer is “yes”.

The calculation of the female BMI is based on the same formula as the male BMI. In short, the BMI formula does not take into account gender or age.

Furthermore, its calculation does not take into account the weight of the different fluids in the body (for example, lymphatic fluid in case of edema), nor the bone mass, or the muscle mass. In addition, it does not take into account the distribution of fat.

Thus, two women can have the same BMI but different body profiles, more or less at risk for their health.

Because beyond the BMI, it is above all the presence of abdominal fat that raises cardiovascular risks. Abdominal fat gain is often accentuated by hormonal factors, particularly in women from the age of 50 when menopause arrives.