Body Mass Index (BMI) serves as a key indicator of cardiovascular health and general wellness. Learn how to calculate BMI for athletes, children, and amputees, and understand what your results mean.
Doctors use body mass index, or BMI, to help determine who is overweight or obese. Although it isn't a perfect measurement, it is free and easy to calculate so it is good for screening patients. If you have a high BMI, you are considered obese, which puts you at higher risk for a number of health conditions.
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Body mass index, a measurement calculated using height and weight, is often used to help determine if someone is overweight, underweight or at a healthy weight.
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Body mass index is used to estimate whether a person is at a healthy weight and body fat percentage for his height.
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You can't actually calculate your body mass index, or BMI, using your waist and hip measurements. These two measurements are used to calculate your waist-to-hip ratio, or WHR, which can be helpful for determining whether you're carrying your weight in a healthy way.
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Although body mass index and body fat percentage tend to be related, BMI -- a calculation based on height and weight -- doesn't necessarily accurately predict a person's body fat percentage.
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With so many images in the media of very thin women, some people will diet to try to fit in with this idea of beauty and in the process become so thin that they're unhealthy. Others may be overly thin for different reasons, but whatever the cause, it isn't healthy to be underweight.
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Knowing the average BMI -- body mass index -- for your age group can help you determine how you compare to other people of the same age, but, even if you have an average BMI, it doesn't necessarily mean you're healthy. In fact, for many age groups, having an average BMI may classify you as overweight.
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