Even modest weight loss of 5-10% of body weight can significantly improve health. By focusing on reaching a healthy BMI rather than an arbitrary weight, you can set goals that are appropriate for your individual body structure. To discover your BMI on our handy interactive calculator using both the old and new formulas, simply choose between imperial or metric measurements, then enter your height and weight, and press ‘Go’. Get instant insights into your body mass index with our professional-grade calculator. It then calculates muscle, fat, bone, and water. These send a small electrical current through the body and measure how it moves through different types of tissue. This population may tend toward proportions of fat to muscle and bone that differ significantly from other populations. BMI does not account for ethnic variations in body size and fat percentage. Yes, when someone’s BMI is very high, it’s very likely that he is carrying extra fat, said Francisco Lopez-Jimenez, director of preventive cardiology at the Mayo Clinic. No datasets were generated or analysed during the current study. All these considerations pertain to the anthropometric component of the diagnosis of obesity. These methods are currently under-utilized but can be recommended for wider application in the future for more precise estimations of adiposity and body composition. In any event, measurements of WC require trained personnel and application of a standardized approach. BMI, body mass index; DM, diabetes mellitus; CAD, coronary artery disease; COPD, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease; Barthel, Barthel basic daily living activities scale; Lawton, Lawton instrumental daily living activities scale; MNA, Mini-Nutritional Assessment; MMSE, Mini-Mental State Examination; HGS, handgrip strength; GDS, Geriatric Depression Scale; TUG, Timed Up and Go test. A total of 1,312 people with either a diagnosis of dementia or history of cerebrovascular disease, and those with missing data were excluded from the study. Although some studies have investigated associations between obesity or BMI and geriatric conditions, the present study is the first to examine associations between many geriatric assessment parameters, such as nutritional status, cognitive and functional status, gait and balance, and muscle strength and BMI groups, simultaneously.9) This situation is known as the obesity paradox.7,8) Therefore, it is not clear which BMI range is most beneficial for older adults in terms of outcomes, such as functionality, risk of falls, nutritional status, and strength. Next, wrap the tape measure around your waist between where your ribcage ends and your hip bones begin. While it can classify your weight, it can’t dig into the whys behind complex and personal subjects like weight and obesity. This matters because men and women carry different amounts of fat — and for different reasons. That’s because BMI doesn’t consider the following factors that may impact body weight. No matter what your weight is, eating a plant-based diet and staying physically active can reduce your risk for cancer. Distribution of obesity classes at various levels of the Edmonton Obesity Staging System (EOSS). Another challenge, he said, is that assignment to Stage 2 requires only one abnormal finding, but the presence of two or more abnormal findings does not change the EOSS's assessed risk for that stage. BMI can still be used for screening, he clarified, but EOSS staging points to the comorbidities of obesity. Finally, stage 4 represents end-stage disease, such as liver failure or the need for dialysis in renal failure. The same BMI ranges apply to both, but women typically have more body fat than men at the same BMI. People with very large waists – generally, 94cm or more in men and 80cm or more in women – are more likely to develop obesity-related health problems. For example, the normal BMI scores may not be accurate if you're very muscular because muscle can add extra kilos, resulting in a high BMI when you are not an unhealthy weight. For most adults, having a BMI of 18.5 to 24.9 is considered to be a healthy weight. Physical activity guidelines for adults to maintain healthy weight. Health Compass podcast Additionally, the analysis was grouped with data considering family history, family size, age, education, waist circumference, BMI, hypertension, smoking, and the number of meals eaten per day. The research revealed that those with a BMI greater than 35 kg/m2 had an increased risk of developing type II diabetes compared to those with BMI’s lower than 23 kg/m2. Considering the evidence presented by previous research, the affiliation between BMI and chronic disease variables can be extrapolated to the general population. The best predictors of hypertension risk were BMI, WHtR, WC, and ponderal index in this population . In a church-based cross-sectional study with 912 participants from various cities in southeastern Nigeria, BMI, WC, HC, and conicity index were significantly higher in females than males. Women more often store fat subcutaneously and in the gluteofemoral region, while men are more likely to store excess fat in the abdominal region . After the exclusion of heavy drinkers, men exhibited higher levels of ALT than women in all racial/ethnic groups . Their results showed that BMI was highest among NHB women and lowest among Asian women and that the largest gender difference existed in NHB, whereby NHB women had higher BMI than NHB men. Stage 1 represents subclinical obesity-related risk factors in those three areas, such as elevated blood pressure, impaired fasting glucose, elevated liver enzymes, and mild functional limitations.While BMI is a useful measurement for most people, it's not accurate for everyone.An “abnormal” BMI only suggests whether a measured weight (in kg) divided by height squared (in m) is out of range of so-called normal limits .Keep encouraging your child to eat well and move more, and they are more likely to stay a healthy weight.However, if you'd like a more in-depth look at your body composition than DIY options offer, you might want to consider a professional tool.Compared with people of healthy weight, those with overweight or obesity are at greater risk for many diseases, including diabetes, high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease, stroke, and at least 13 types of cancer, as well as having an elevated risk of death from all causes (2–5).In one of the first studies involving more than 300,000 adults of various ethnic groups to compare BMI and the discriminatory power of WHtR and WC in distinguishing adults with hypertension, DM, dyslipidemia, metabolic syndrome, and general CVD outcomes, WHtR had significantly great discriminatory power compared with BMI. Following community-based or primary care screening, clinical referral of overweight persons to qualified nutrition and healthcare professionals can solicit a more detailed body composition and nutritional status evaluation. Incorporating advanced imaging techniques such as dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DEXA) or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) could provide a more accurate assessment of body composition, including fat distribution and muscle mass. This challenge arises because the individual may gain muscle mass while losing fat, resulting in an increased or stable BMI, which confuses the evaluation by health/fitness professionals monitoring patient/client progress. The health behavior/lifestyle and disease frameworks are consequential, in assigning specific meaning to BMI as a measure of what one does with their body to maintain their health, or how their body is with respect to latent health (Greenhalgh 2015). Yet, studying this relationship taps into an enormity of biophysiological, psychological, social, and cultural mechanisms that are beyond the reach of extant approaches to defining a “healthy” body. These messages reinforce social beliefs about individual responsibility for worse health among people with higher BMIs, which may exacerbate COVID risk by increasing their propensity for unhealthy behaviors or avoiding needed medical care (Hill et al. 2021; Flint 2020; Le Brocq et al. 2020; Puhl et al. 2020; Townsend et al. 2020; Wu 2020). In other words, emerging narratives actively contributed to individuals’ current obesity as effectively being a surrogate marker of their future COVID-19 risk, and severity therein, adding to a long list of health conditions for which BMI is used as a proxy. Certainly, the preference is that individuals are free of these external risks, especially from modifiable factors, but such preferences for living in a ‘risk-free’ society should not serve as the basis of perceptions of, beliefs about, and interactions with individuals as being unhealthy and deviant, to the extent this is the true of BMI. Weight loss fundamentally comes down to creating a calorie deficit—consuming fewer calories than your body burns. Always consult a healthcare provider for health-related decisions. Experts have identified a flaw in the basic BMI formula and have recently come up with a new calculation which presents a more realistic result as it scales more accurately in relation to a person’s height. Table 3 shows the correlations between BMI and BF % and also between BMI and lean mass by sex and age groups. After stratifying by sex, the area under the curve was lower for men (0.82) than for women (0.94). Diagnostic performance of BMI to detect obesity using BMI cut-off points of ≥ 25 and ≥ 30 kg/m2 by sex and age groups Table 2 displays further details of the diagnostic performance of BMI to detect obesity using BMI cut-off points of ≥ 25 kg/m2 and ≥ 30 kg/m2 by sex and age groups. After stratifying by sex, a BMI ≥ 25 kg/m2 had a good sensitivity in both men and women (84% and 88%, respectively) and a good specificity in women (85%) but not in men (62%). Moreover, in the elderly, where most of the mortality occurs in survival studies, BMI had its worst diagnostic performance. In fact, the U-shape association between BMI and mortality has been previously reported in the NHANES III population 13. Body mass index has good general correlation with BF %, but it fails to discriminate between BF % and lean mass. Correlation coefficients between BMI and BF % and between BMI and lean mass by sex and age groups Both support the idea that a healthy weight for one's height - a good proxy for which can be the presence of a slim waist - is good for health outcomes. The graph shows the relationship between being overweight or obese according to BMI measures and relative risk of different diseases. In general, BMI is useful when applied to adults, but may be ill-suited when used for young children or even teenagers where the waist to hip ratio and body fat estimates may be more informative. While BMI has limitations as a health measure, it offers a standardized way to determine a healthy weight range based on your height. What research is being done on obesity and cancer? NCI supports research on obesity and cancer risk through a variety of activities, including large cooperative initiatives, web and data resources, epidemiologic and basic science studies, and dissemination and implementation resources. In addition to studies of the mechanisms by which obesity influences cancer risk, researchers are exploring whether associations vary by race or ethnicity (72). Research indicates that obesity may worsen several aspects of cancer survivorship, including quality of life, cancer recurrence, cancer progression, prognosis (survival), and risk of certain second primary cancers (31, 32, 34, 62, 63). Her experience includes corporate wellness, teaching for the American College of Sports Medicine, sports nutrition, weight management, integrative medicine, oncology support, and dialysis. Kara Andrew, RDN, LDN, is the director of health promotion for Memorial Hospital in Carthage, Illinois. A low BMI also has implications for your overall mortality. Losing more than 5 percent of your weight during a 6- to 12-month period without trying typically indicates a problem, according to Cleveland Clinic. The percentage of white versus black pixels is used to compute a real pixel size, and proprietary equations are used to compute total body and abdominal FM. 2D DP has been validated to estimate total and abdominal FM in adults and overcomes many of the limitations of 3D imaging systems which can entail large equipment that is cumbersome to transport. Additionally, PCA of 3DO scans improves prediction of cardiometabolic risk factors such as blood lipids and T2D markers . The measurements are also limited to linear, circumferential, volumetric, and surface areas. Many adults can successfully and sustainably improve many other cardiometabolic indicators that allow for better overall health and longevity (Bacon and Aphramor 2011; Mann et al. 2007; Tylka et al. 2014). More than just an abstract concept, weight neutrality is seen as a practical and sustainable alternative to the BMI-centric approaches used in assessing and intervening on individual and population health. To the extent that BMI is surrogate marker of physical appearance, it is simultaneously marker of social abnormality and inequality, representing a distinct process by which individuals’ social interactions and experiences affect their health. This measurement was first described by Adolphus Quetelet in the mid 19th century based on the observation that body weight was proportional to the square of the height in adults with normal body frames 7. Another measure of excess fat is waist to height ratio, which can be used as an additional measure in adults who have a BMI under 35. BMI is a measure of whether you're a healthy weight for your height. The most widely used method to check if you're a healthy weight is body mass index (BMI). Waist circumferences can assess body fat distribution by measuring the distance around the abdomen in different anatomical locations . Apart from genetic factors, the relationship between BMI and percent body fat is highly variable by race, ethnicity, sex, and age (acknowledging that these simple constructs may mask more complex social elements), and these factors may interact . As mentioned previously, BMI estimates fat amount but is not precise in measuring fat distribution, as with abdominal fat or central fatness, which are better predictors of the risk of mortality . One year later, this Task Force modified the cutoff value between normal and overweight to 25 kg/m2 and did not subdivide the obesity classifications . In contrast, the WHO classified people with a BMI between 20 and 24.9 kg/m2 as having normal weight, those with a BMI between 25 and 29.9 kg/m2 as overweight, and those with a BMI greater than 30 kg/m2 as obese . Yes, it’s possible to have a high BMI and still be healthy, especially if you have a lot of muscle. If your BMI is in the healthy range, it can help you stay motivated to maintain your weight. You can also use our BMI calculator for UK patients to work this out easily by entering your height and weight. For example, if you weigh 70 kg and your height is 1.75 metres, your BMI would be about 22.9, which is considered healthy. Older adults with BMI 35 kg/m2 were at a higher risk of a decrease in functional capacity, and experienced gait and balance problems, fall risk, decrease in muscle strength, and malnutrition. Yet you don’t see multimillion dollar public health campaigns focused on trying to get people to gain weight, do you? One of the common critiques of BMI is that athletes who appear to be specimens of health, like LeBron James or Tom Brady, have BMI’s that categorize them in the “overweight'“ or “obese” range. One of the problems with BMI is that it doesn’t distinguish between fat, muscle, skeletal tissue, or fluid weight. Adolphe Quetelet, the creator himself, stated that it was not for use on individuals, and it was most certainly not designed to measure health. People who have a lot of muscle can have a high BMI, even though they’re healthy and not carrying excess harmful fat (which is normally found around our major organs – known as visceral fat). BMI helps you understand if you’re underweight, at a healthy weight, overweight, or obese. It’s a simple tool to figure out if you’re in a healthy weight range for your height. Our weight loss programmes include a free dietitian consultation and educational materials to help you maintain or achieve a healthy BMI. There are other metrics that do a much better job of identifying these people — all we have to do is measure some hips and waists. The clinical component of the diagnosis, consisting of an evaluation of the risk, presence, and severity of obesity-related complications, remains essential for evaluating the impact of adiposity on health. More sophisticated tools can provide accurate measures of body composition and fat distribution, including DXA, CT, and MRI. BMI was calculated as weight in kilograms divided by squared height in meters (kg/m2). Body weight was measured with an electronic load cell scale to the nearest 0.01 kg. We further excluded subjects with measurements above the 99.9 percentile, resulting in a final sample of 13,601 participants, including 6,580 men and 7,021 women. For this study, we included only subjects with bioelectrical impedance analysis (15,864) to allow the estimation of body composition. Briefly, out of a sample of 39,695 people selected for the NHANESIII, 33,994 were interviewed and 30,818 submitted to an examination by a physician at a mobile examination center which included extensive anthropometric, physiological, and laboratory testing. It’s a concrete measure of improvement that can keep individuals committed to their weight loss plans, especially when they might not see significant changes on the scale. This is especially motivating for those who may not see a drastic weight change but are losing fat and gaining muscle, which is a healthier and more sustainable improvement. This precision helps in creating a balanced approach to weight loss, where caloric intake can be adjusted based on expenditure to maintain a healthy caloric deficit. BMI, or Body Mass Index, is a widely used measure to categorize weight status in adults and is calculated by dividing a person’s weight in kilograms by the square of their height in meters. Official guidance on eating a healthy, balanced diet in the UK. Being underweight can affect your immune system, bone health, and overall wellbeing. No, this calculator is designed for adults aged 18 and over. Weekly or bi-weekly monitoring can help track progress during weight loss or gain programmes. Please consult your midwife, health visitor, or GP for appropriate weight guidance during pregnancy and breastfeeding. This distinction is consequential for knowledge of the relationship between body size and health, as well as for individuals deemed to have abnormal and “unhealthy” bodies. Despite the ubiquity of the body mass index (BMI) in discourse on health, there is ambiguity in its use as a biomarker of current abnormality versus future risk. For instance, athletes can have a high BMI because of their muscle mass, even if they’re not overweight. Adolphe Quetelet, a Belgian astronomer and mathematician, first proposed the Quetelet Index in 1859, as body mass (kg)/height (m2), as a measure of obesity . Maintaining a healthy weight is one of the most important things you can do to reduce your risk of cancer and other chronic diseases. The body mass index (BMI) is the metric currently in use for defining anthropometric height/weight characteristics in adults and for classifying (categorizing) them into groups. However, using BMI to categorize obesity for the sake of predicting chronic disease risk is suboptimal, and other measures like waist circumference and waist to hip ratio may be preferred. Yes, some ethnic groups may have higher health risks at lower BMIs, leading to adjusted guidelines in some countries. Some research suggests a slightly higher BMI (up to 27) may be healthier for older adults than the standard range. For most adults, checking every 3-6 months is sufficient unless you’re actively trying to change your weight. It’s calculated as weight in kilograms divided by height in meters cubed. Another study, based in Turkey, evaluated diabetes risk factors in 26,499 individuals, where regional analysis was completed and spanned North, South, East, West, and Central regions . While this research upholds the claim that obesity increases the risk for disease, it is significant to consider the relevance of the data considering it was collected more than two decades ago (1994). While BMI is seemingly a good indicator for studying correlation with chronic disease, the measurement tool does not come without limitations, as discussed in this review. The significance of the body weight for your health can easily be derived from the SBMI. I hope you enjoyed building the BMI calculator app and thank you again for reading. If you’re aiming to enhance your skills even further, you’re welcome to add extra features to the BMI calculator app we’ve already built. We are applying some limitations to each measurement (i.e. the value of the feet can be only in the range of 0 to 9). Documentation for the NHANES III measurements are available in written and video presentations 22,23. All personnel performing NHANES III anthropometric measurements were previously trained and followed a strict protocol. For this study we limited the analyses to adult subjects (≥ 20 to 79.9 years), yielding aninitial sample size of 14,025. Copy the summary or explore charts and tips to plan next steps with your healthcare provider.He stated that most measures of total body fat are not clinical measures.This is especially motivating for those who may not see a drastic weight change but are losing fat and gaining muscle, which is a healthier and more sustainable improvement.Incorporating a body fat calculator into a weight loss program enriches the strategy by providing crucial insights into body composition.The American Medical Association (AMA) issued a report and policy recommendation in June 2023 that urged medical professionals to do more comprehensive assessments of overweight and rely less on BMI 23,24.Body mass index is a person’s weight in kilograms divided by the square of height in meters. Healthy waist measurements can also be different for people from different ethnic backgrounds. As well as calculating your BMI, your GP may also carry out tests to determine whether you're at increased risk of developing health complications because of your weight. Find out what your body mass index (BMI) is by using our BMI calculator. Another study of 899 women showed that lean but unfit women had a higher risk of all-cause mortality than overweight but more fit women, i.e., BMI was less predictive than good fitness . Hence, the “overweight” range included men with a low estimated body fat as well as men whose body fat percentage is compatible with obesity . Azagury — who has found associations between the BMI levels of patients who have obesity and their health outcomes after weight loss surgery — pointed out that BMI is a risk factor for health, not a direct measure of health at any given time. Incorporating a body fat calculator into a weight loss program enriches the strategy by providing crucial insights into body composition. The research, which was released in the journal Obesity, looked at 41,439 adults and classified them both by BMI and waist circumference, measured at the narrowest part of the torso. He and others are studying metrics that incorporate waist size, which is known to be an indicator of visceral fat. But among those who are overweight or normal weight by BMI, the measurement tool fails, he said. Despite the strong, ethical case that a sociostructural definition of risk would allow for a more inclusive definition of eligibility – especially in the case of high-risk minority populations (Schmidt et al. 2020) – the current emphasis on biophysiological risk reflects extant norms about using BMI as a flawed, but acceptable, surrogate of health. It is also understandable that definitions of biophysiological risk and unhealthiness err on the side being liberal, with the goal of unintentionally excluding risk factors because the exact mechanisms of action are unclear. Yet these sociostructural explanations are ignored when the neutrality of BMI is confounded by pre-existing assumptions about body size, biocitizenship and healthiness. Many of these mechanisms of discrimination, bias, and ignorance are well-known explanations linking body size to health, and serve as plausible mediators for the association between BMI and COVID-19 severity (Hill et al. 2021; Townsend et al. 2020), independent of biophysiological pathways. Race and ethnicity are also ‘risk factors’ given the disproportionate toll of COVID-19 on minority individuals and communities (CDC 2020). Developed as a formula to measure the ratio of weight to height, over the past 50 years BMI has somehow become a proxy for measuring health. You can use the body mass index (BMI) calculator as a screening tool for your weight. There’s another camp that doesn’t care about finding a better measure of excess body fat at all but would prefer to move beyond metrics of extra fat. First, waist circumference results often don’t account for factors like genetics and ethnicity. To take this measurement, first, grab a tape measure. Waist circumference simply involves measuring your waist. Dietz moved on to report the results of a 2004 study comparing waist circumference with BMI with respect to the risk of metabolic syndrome among approximately 15,000 men and women with BMIs between 18.5 and 35 (Janssen et al., 2004). A study critical to informing BMI cutpoints for Asian populations determined the BMI in seven different Asian populations that corresponded to a total body fat of 25 percent and 30 percent (based on DEXA) (WHO Expert Consultation, 2004). Lastly, Dietz pointed out that the lowest mortality across the distribution of BMI has been used to define a “healthy” weight; the term “normal” weight is no longer used because there is no normal weight distribution. Thus, Dietz concluded, BMI is a reasonable measure of body fat in children and adolescents. BMI correlates well with adiposity at the population level, as well as with cardiometabolic disease including T2D , gestational diabetes , atherosclerosis, stroke, and coronary artery disease . The use of BMI for screening and diagnosis of obesity has many advantages. Body mass index (BMI); World Health Organization (WHO), National Institute of Excellence in Health and Care (NICE) 7, 8 Obesity is a potential risk factor for undesirable surgical outcomes in older adults. Galanos et al.22) observed a J-shaped relationship between BMI and decreased muscle strength in older individuals aged 65–85 years. ROC, receiver operating characteristic; BMI, body mass index; Barthel, Barthel basic daily living activities scale; Lawton, Lawton instrumental daily living activities scale; MNA, Mini-Nutritional Assessment; GDS, Geriatric Depression Scale; MMSE, Mini-Mental State Examination; TUG, Timed Up and Go test; HGS, handgrip strength. The researchers discovered a statistically significant positive correlation between BMI and hypercholesterolemia for people in the years age group, with the strongest effect on those in the years age range. The same researcher, Aarestrup et al. ; however, found no relationship between childhood BMI and the probability of prostate cancer development in men once the data was adjusted for height. The researchers uncovered a positive association between childhood BMI and cardiovascular death within the 50th to 74th percentile of the BMI range and noted an even stronger relationship with BMI above the 95th percentile.A plethora of studies found similar correlations between high childhood BMI and disease later in life. If you are worried about your weight, contact your local pharmacist or GP surgery.People who have a higher BMI at the time of cancer diagnosis have higher risks of developing a second primary cancer (a cancer not related to the first cancer) in the future (31–34)."I worry that if we make the guidelines more complicated, we'll have even fewer people who are aware they should seek treatment."In their totality, there is compelling evidence that psychosocial mechanisms constitute some of the primary pathways through which individuals’ body size negatively impacts their health (Tomiyama et al. 2018).It can help a patient track changes to their body over time, but should not be used as an absolute measure of health.Importantly, the BMI also does not capture information on the mass of fat in different body sites.Minetto et al. makes the point that people are inherently more interested in how they look to the eye than in numerical descriptors of their body size and composition .Certainly, the preference is that individuals are free of these external risks, especially from modifiable factors, but such preferences for living in a ‘risk-free’ society should not serve as the basis of perceptions of, beliefs about, and interactions with individuals as being unhealthy and deviant, to the extent this is the true of BMI. "If your doctor raises BMI as a health risk, ask them what the evidence is for any recommendation they are making," she said. She encourages patients to question their clinician's use of BMI — particularly if they are in the overweight, rather than obese, category. Mathur said public health messaging on BMI, emphasizing its weaknesses and its role as one risk factor among many that shape health, needs to change. "We use BMI to triage patients for different weight loss interventions and to comply with insurance requirements," he said. Remember to focus on long-term trends rather than daily fluctuations, as weight naturally varies due to hydration, food intake, and hormonal changes. BMI is a useful screening tool for most adults, but it has limitations. Additionally, our tool provides recommendations that align with NHS weight management programmes available across England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. 3DO has been shown to accurately predict total FM and total body composition (FM and FFM) . Several studies have investigated the use of 3DO body shape to estimate body composition 79–83. “e-tape” measurements of avatars from 3 different subjects. What should I eat to maintain a healthy BMI? It is a useful estimate of body fatness in populations but cannot be used on its own to indicate obesity-related disease risks in individuals (6). For example, a person with high muscle mass, such as a football player, may be mistaken for having obesity, and a person with small bones but higher belly fat may be considered to have a healthy weight. This complexity makes it difficult to identify obesity-related comorbidities and creates clinical uncertainty in terms of weight management.1) It should also be noted that some studies in older adults with cardiovascular disease, cancer, and stroke have found that overweight and obese patients have a lower risk of mortality. The ability to quickly and easily measure body size using the Body Mass Index (BMI; body weight kg / height-squared m2), and then map these values onto substantive categories like “overweight” and “obesity,” has made body size pervasive in scientific and lay narratives about the healthiness of a given person or population (Nicholls 2013). Women, compared with men, tend to store more fat in their hips and thighs rather than their abdominal region — yet BMI is not adjusted for gender. However, most of the early studies of BMI that were used to decide the cutoff numbers between risk categories included only non-Hispanic white men. They said that its simplicity and years of use mean it is likely not going away anytime soon, but that any conclusions drawn from BMI should always be put in the context of someone's broader health. For decades, BMI has been used to stratify people for research and clinical care. Semaglutide injections may not be covered by health insurance for people falling below certain BMI cut-offs; a more comprehensive assessment could provide a more accurate assessment of need . These measures are also relatively simple in the hands of trained practitioners and are low-cost; they can better evaluate adiposity instead of an exclusive focus on excess weight. Basing an obesity diagnosis solely on BMI can be inaccurate and may incur discriminatory and costly patient consequences, as when employers increase employees’ health insurance costs if the BMI is above a given threshold . These methods provide greater precision in identifying the risk of metabolic diseases and can help overcome the limitations of BMI in specific population groups. Individuals may have a similar BMI but differ in the amount and distribution of FM, thus having differing health outcomes .You may benefit from joining a local weight management programme with group meetings or online support.Body mass index (BMI) calculators are screening tools to estimate weight status.This brief review explores the associations between body mass index, waist circumference, and the waist-hip ratio as measurements and their capability as predictors for persistent conditions like diabetes and hypertension.Want to determine your weight classification without BMI?Still, if one of these body indices is skewing on the higher end, talk about it.Research indicates that obesity may worsen several aspects of cancer survivorship, including quality of life, cancer recurrence, cancer progression, prognosis (survival), and risk of certain second primary cancers (31, 32, 34, 62, 63). The best way to treat obesity is to eat a healthy reduced-calorie diet and exercise regularly. Some medicines can also make people more likely to put on weight, including steroids and some medicines for high blood pressure, diabetes or mental health conditions. This video explains how to measure your waist so you can calculate your waist to height ratio. BMI score has some limitations because it measures whether a person is carrying too much weight but not too much fat. The term obese describes a person who has excess body fat. While use of the BMI scale is extremely common (as is the belief that weight equals health), anyone with some degree of education in weight science will admit there are many problems with BMI. Learn about the problems with BMI, and why we should stop using this metric to measure health. BMI charts are as ubiquitous to doctors offices as stethoscopes and thermometers, a crude formula that categorizes people into categories based on weight. Eating well and being physically active contribute to healthy growth in childhood and good health throughout life. The increased odds ratio held true when BMI was adjusted for waist circumference category (elevated or not elevated) but disappeared when BMI was adjusted for absolute waist circumference. It would be helpful to see this adjustment made in National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey data, he remarked, which would show how the use of an Asian-specific standard would affect the prevalence of obesity in Asian populations. The same relationship held for obesity, Dietz reported, which is defined in the United States as BMI ≥30, but for Asian populations, as BMI ≥27.5. Obesity prevalence among non-Hispanic White (NHW), non-Hispanic Black (NHB), non-Hispanic Asian (NHA), and Hispanic (HISP) men and women, 2017–2018. Dietz next discussed the rationale for using BMI in adults. The CDC describes BMI as a “screening tool” that is not intended to diagnose excess body fat or weight-related illnesses, such as high blood pressure, elevated cholesterol, and type 2 diabetes.For this study, we included only subjects with bioelectrical impedance analysis (15,864) to allow the estimation of body composition.While BMI is seemingly a good indicator of chronic diseases, such as type II diabetes, some researchers suggest that other measurement tools are more useful for this prediction.A doctor can evaluate factors besides diet and exercise—such as your medications and sleeping habits—that may be contributing to your weight.Studying the relationship between body size and health is important, but there is a need to better acknowledge uncertainty in what BMI serves a marker of.For most people, however, both the BMI and BRI assessment tools will provide similar results.“Obviously, the people who were big by both measures had an increased risk of mortality,” about 30 percent higher than those who weren’t obese by either measure, said Stephanie Tanamas, an author of the study who is now a research fellow with the U.S.Track your health journey with precision and confidence. For example, if you have a lot of muscle, you may be classed as overweight or obese despite having low body fat. For example, a man with a BMI of 22 (putting him firmly in the normal range) but too much belly fat according to his waist-to-hip ratio had an 87 percent higher mortality risk than a guy with the same BMI and a healthy waist-to-hip ratio. Meanwhile, 31 percent of normal-weight people were unhealthy by two or more of the same measures.2 Using BMI alone as a measure of health would misclassify almost 75 million adults in the U.S., the authors concluded. It found that 47 percent of people classified as overweight by BMI and 29 percent of those who qualified as obese were healthy as measured by at least five of those other metrics. Ashwell et al. in 1996 proposed the waist-to-height ratio (WHtR) as the best anthropometric predictor of intra-abdominal fat, and the strongest predictor of cardiometabolic disease risk in adults. Translating Knowledge of Foundational Drivers of Obesity into Practice: Proceedings of a Workshop Series. Remember that BMI doesn't account for factors like muscle mass, bone density, or fat distribution. When setting a target BMI for weight loss, it's important to be realistic and focus on health rather than arbitrary numbers. Traditionally BMI is measured by a person’s weight in kilograms divided by the square of their height in meters – the acceptable range for BMI is between 18.5 and 25. Unlike generic international calculators, ours incorporates UK-specific population demographics, lifestyle factors, and health standards.Conflating risk and health in discourse on BMI creates confusion about vulnerability amid existing uncertainty about what it means to be a safe and responsible member of society, especially when this messaging plays a key role in shaping public knowledge of healthiness, morality, and even social status (Monaghan 2021).In contrast, the WHO classified people with a BMI between 20 and 24.9 kg/m2 as having normal weight, those with a BMI between 25 and 29.9 kg/m2 as overweight, and those with a BMI greater than 30 kg/m2 as obese .EOSS Stage 0 represents zero medical, mental, or functional clinical risk factors.If your BMI is in the healthy range, it can help you stay motivated to maintain your weight.Understanding body composition—specifically body fat percentage—is crucial for assessing health and planning effective weight loss strategies.Many studies show that BIA underestimates FM in patients with obesity, sarcopenia and/or metabolic syndrome 72, 73.Not only was the BMI formula not developed for use on individuals, but the populations measured in its development were in no way representative of the diverse populations it’s being used on today.The leftmost card contains the form that the users can submit to calculate the BMI. This puts you at risk of essential nutrient deficiencies that can have long-term consequences for your health. Excessive stress, such as the death of a loved one, can also lead to weight loss and cause your BMI to drop. BMI is calculated by dividing a person’s weight in kilograms by the square of their height in meters. A waist to height ratio of 0.5 or higher means you may have increased health risks. But for most people, BMI is a useful indication of whether they're a healthy weight. You can use the NHS BMI healthy weight calculator to find out your BMI. BMI is a calculated measure of body weight relative to height. Patients at any given BMI may or may not have obesity complication and related diseases. In addition, there are race and sex differences in the association between BMI and all-cause mortality, which are likely driven by differences in body composition, independent of BMI. Based upon evidence correlating BMI with risk of T2D in Asian-American adults, the American Diabetes Association recommends screening for diabetes when BMI ≥ 23 kg/m2 . Additionally, 40–70% of individuals with obesity have OSA 13, 14. BMI is a quick, inexpensive, and reproducible measure useful in the initial screening for obesity. Talking to your healthcare professional openly and honestly about your weight concerns is one of the best things you can do for your health. Always consult your healthcare professional before you begin a weight-loss medicine. Others are approved for treatment of diabetes with weight loss as an added benefit. Focus on finding a weight that you can maintain while feeling energetic and healthy. The optimal BMI varies between individuals based on factors like age, muscle mass, and ethnicity. Our calculator provides three different calorie deficit options based on your chosen rate of weight loss. Our calculator estimates the daily calorie deficit needed to achieve your weight loss goals at different rates. Athletes or very muscular individuals may have a higher BMI while still being healthy. The importance and usefulness of the index and hence any Body Mass Index calculator is in its curvilinear relationship to all-cause mortality. People can then be categorized as underweight, normal weight, overweight, or obese, based on their BMI value. The calculator works for adult men and women and may be unsuitable for children and teenagers. It also shows your BMI category, as well as the BMI Prime index and how much overweight or underweight you are compared to the optimal weight range. For instance, the long-running Bogalusa Heart Study found that among children in its cohort with BMI ≥95th percentile, 70 percent had one risk factor for cardiovascular disease, and 39 percent had two or more (Freedman et al., 2007). A second point to support the use of BMI in children and adolescents, Dietz continued, is that BMI ﹥95th percentile increases disease risk. Dietz remarked that BMI is a simple calculation of weight (kilograms) divided by height (meters) squared. Dietz next shared four points to support his rationale for why BMI is a reasonable measure for assessment of obesity in children and adolescents. Parents and caregivers can help children have healthy growth and a healthy weight. “If you’re eating healthy, exercising and sleeping well, I don’t care how much fat you have,” Tomiyama said. “It’s thrown off the focus on actual health markers.” And, she said, it has contributed to a stigma against the overweight. “Sure, waist circumference is better than BMI, but the focus on fat and on body size has done us a disservice,” said A. But at the very least, they said, waist-based indicators should be used in tandem with BMI to identify more people who are at risk. Standard BMI Ranges A range of factors may put you at risk for a higher BMI, many of which you can change to work toward a healthier weight. For men, a waist of 94cm or more (90cm for high-risk ethnic groups) indicates increased health risks. If your BMI is below 18.5, consult your GP to rule out underlying medical conditions and discuss healthy weight gain strategies. Your genes can affect how your body uses food and stores fat. Genetics can also be a cause of obesity for some people. Obesity is an increasingly common problem because the environment we live in makes it difficult for many people to eat healthily and do enough physical activity. Obesity is a serious health concern that increases the risk of many other health conditions. Besides compromising physical health, obesity very often leads to psychological and social distress. Obesity is a risk factor for death from SARS-CoV-2 infection (COVID-19 disease), perhaps related to stress on lung capacity and complexities in ventilator management in intensive care settings . An individual’s weight in kilograms divided by height in meters squared was devised by Adolphe Quetelet, a Belgian mathematician, in the 1830s to enable the comparison of White middle-aged European men of varying heights via a common parameter. Awareness of the advantages and limitations of using BMI as a tool to assess adult obesity can maximize its appropriate use in the context of population health and in rapid clinical screening and evaluation. Among adults, BMI has been used to assess overweight status independent of age or sex , though its cut-offs for the elderly are debated . In 15,828 patients with stable coronary heart disease, there was a progressive rise in cardiometabolic and inflammatory risk factors (e.g., hypertension, diabetes, triglycerides, and inflammatory biomarkers) at BMI measures exceeding 25 kg/m2. Its numerical value comes at very little expense to the patient or the healthcare system; even the time and effort of healthcare workers can be minimized since community workers can be trained to obtain accurate height and weight in both higher- and lower-income regions. On the other hand, some healthcare professionals choose not to emphasize BMI. Frank Contacessa, MD, an internist in Armonk, New York, says that it’s a better factor to consider in a holistic health assessment. Instead, it is one of several measurement tools, including blood pressure, blood sugar, and others, that tell us different things and are pieces of a larger puzzle, she says. She holds a Master of Science in health and nutrition education and is board certified in holistic nutrition. Yet, in explaining these associations, one also cannot ignore the discrepancy between the literal definition of BMI, based on height and weight, and the extent to which BMI is used as a surrogate for myriad health processes. Yet this has not curbed the reification of the association between body size and health in using BMI categories to sort individuals by their degree of healthiness, regardless of how they fare otherwise (Jutel 2011). Many governing medical bodies are explicit about adopting the practice of labeling obesity as a disease in an effort to legitimate obesity as a serious and diagnosable health condition within the eyes of medical practitioners, their patients, and the population at large (Allison et al. 2008; Bray et al. 2017; Kyle et al. 2016). In turn, this review makes a case for better theory, emphasizing that measures of risk are not interchangeable with measures of health, especially when both biophysiological and psychosocial mechanisms are at play – as is true of BMI. BMI is a marker of risk, but its use as a surrogate for COVID-19 severity equates body size with health, shaping beliefs about vulnerability and personal responsibility amid an ongoing pandemic. The review concludes by demonstrating how the riskiness and unhealthiness of body size is conflated in public health messaging on COVID-19. This gives rise to a vicious cycle by which the poor health of a marginalized group is used to justify their marginalization, likely leading to worse health in the future. Yet, decades of research prove that the relationship between race and health is attributable to race being a proxy for the many social ills inflicted upon non-White persons via interpersonal and institutional forms of discrimination and disenfranchisement (Phelan and Link 2015). The issues surrounding race as an essentialized concept provide a clear illustration of how phenotypic traits are conflated with their social consequences (Frank 2007; Gutin 2019; Morning 2011), wherein race, itself, is assumed to be the innate, causal mechanism underlying poor health. The notion that phenotypic attributes become imbued with social meaning – and thus become health-relevant traits – is not a novel concept (Link and Phelan 2001). Body size is acknowledged as a neutral form of human variation (Saguy 2012), whereby BMI reflects both biophysiological and psychosocial mechanisms of risk. It began to be promoted to the public as a motivation to watch one’s weight for health reasons.More extreme BMI findings have a high predictive utility for obesity-related medical conditions, as well as for undernutrition and cachexia.It’s a concrete measure of improvement that can keep individuals committed to their weight loss plans, especially when they might not see significant changes on the scale.A study critical to informing BMI cutpoints for Asian populations determined the BMI in seven different Asian populations that corresponded to a total body fat of 25 percent and 30 percent (based on DEXA) (WHO Expert Consultation, 2004).There are other metrics that do a much better job of identifying these people — all we have to do is measure some hips and waists.If you're concerned about a child or teenager's weight, speak with their GP, practice nurse, or school nurse. Breaking down complex science and highlighting the innovators inspiring you to make informed choices for a healthier life. WATCH IT HERE "But the vast majority of people who have a BMI in the obese range will likely develop some of these conditions if they don't already have them." "It might actually be good for mortality; it's quite hard to tease apart." Mathur was especially surprised to discover that many previous studies on BMI and mortality did not control for factors like diet and exercise. This can guide your dietary choices and exercise plans to target fat reduction while preserving or increasing muscle mass. 3. Accurate Assessment of Body Composition Weight alone is not a reliable indicator of overall health or fitness because it doesn’t distinguish between pounds that come from fat and those that come from lean tissue, like muscle. Using a calorie-counting calculator during an exercise program for weight loss can significantly enhance the effectiveness of your fitness efforts. In weight loss programs, knowing your BMI can help assess risk, set goals and monitor progress. Standard BMI categories can lead to misclassification bias when considering age, ethnicity, race, sex, or metabolic disease risks for certain disorders . Examples of body mass index cutoff values from different institutions and/or for different populations. Current research seeks to integrate genetic risk factors into obesity assessment and management to see if precision and efficacy in interventions can be improved. Variations in genes related to metabolism, appetite regulation, and fat storage influence obesity susceptibility . Soon after, the National Institute of Health (NIH) implemented BMI as the measure classifying obesity and interventional recommendations . The need to employ an additional clinical component in the diagnosis of obesity that reflects the impact of excess adiposity on health is also emphasized. However, it is important to consider that BMI is only useful as a screening tool since is not a direct measure of adiposity and, as will be discussed, is unreliable as an indicator of the degree to which excess adiposity affects health in individual patients. Other more accurate methods to estimated BF %, such as hydrostatic weighting, energy-dual X-ray absorptiometry and air displacement plethysmography would be preferred 36. A BMI ≥ 30 kg/m2 has an excellent specificity and positive predictive value for diagnosing obesity in both sexes. Unfortunately, the adjustment of BMI cut-offs for obesity does not overcome the limitations of using BMI as a marker of obesity. The true prevalence of obesity might be strikingly higher than that estimated by BMI. Our findings also suggest that the magnitude of the obesity epidemic may be greatly underestimated by the use of BMI as the marker of obesity 35. “Just as you would bring up a headache or back pain with your doctor, people should feel comfortable bringing this up with their health care providers,” says Dr. Mehal. “In the same way that you can be pretty healthy even with a slightly high blood pressure, you can be pretty healthy with a slightly high BMI or BRI, too,” he says. If your BMI or BRI is not in the healthy range, consider the full picture of your health, suggests Dr. Mehal. The data is very clear, but the range between 25 and 30 is not a healthy place to be either,” he says. Using BMI for Weight Loss Planning Differences in fat mass and fat-free mass (FFM) between UK-born South Asians and White Europeans in infancy may exist, as demonstrated by the 2012 Stanfield cross-sectional study that concluded characteristic differences in body composition were observed between the two groups in early infancy. The second search was performed using Embase, including the terms, "body mass index," "gender differences," "cardiovascular disease," and "waist to hip ratio," uncovering 96 results. Using a less accurate index to assess the relationship between weight and disease risk is conceptually invalid because the use of BMI ultimately trickles into patient treatment, preventive medicine, and overall health outcomes. The main limitation of our study is the use of bioelectrical impedance as the method of assessing body fatness. In contrast, in women BMI appears to perform better than men, which may explain why BMI-defined overweight in women has been more consistently related to increased mortality than in men in previous studies 30–31. Join over 1 million users who trust our accurate and reliable BMI calculator. Understand what your BMI means with detailed explanations and health recommendations. Get your BMI results immediately with our lightning-fast calculator. Sitting around too much makes it more more likely your child will put on weight, and can affect how well they sleep. There are lots of easy ways to cut back on sugar, salt and saturated fat – get started with our top tips and simple swaps. They help in setting foundations for realistic goal-setting, creating personalized plans, and motivating individuals throughout their weight loss journey. Overall, ideal weight calculators are useful in the initial planning and ongoing management of weight loss programs. It ensures that dietary plans are not just about losing weight but reaching a healthy weight. These tools provide an estimate of the appropriate weight range based on factors such as height, age, gender, and body frame. Provides Motivation Through Tangible Metrics Seeing tangible changes in body fat percentage can be incredibly motivating. A BMI Prime less than 0.74 is underweight, between 0.74 and 0.99 is optimal, and 1.00 or greater is overweight. BMI is a screening tool that can indicate whether a person might have health issues related to their weight. Body Mass Index (BMI) is a numerical value calculated from your weight and height. “Obviously, the people who were big by both measures had an increased risk of mortality,” about 30 percent higher than those who weren’t obese by either measure, said Stephanie Tanamas, an author of the study who is now a research fellow with the U.S. An Australian study published this month evaluated mortality risk by both BMI and one of these waist-oriented measures. But the BMI is a function of a person’s weight and height.1 Weight includes fat, but it also includes bones, muscle, fluids and everything else in the body. It’s those people who may walk around thinking they’re perfectly healthy when instead they’re at higher risk of heart disease, diabetes and premature death. Zak admits that BRI — because it does a better job of gauging whether someone's fat is stored around their abdomen — could identify some people prone to poor health outcomes that BMI would miss. "Because the prevalence of obesity is so high right now, you can certainly find people who have obesity and no other disease," he said. "We really don't have statistically sound evidence that having an overweight BMI is bad for mortality," Mathur said. "You can assign people to weight loss interventions and test what happens, but you can never assign someone to a particular BMI." This notion underscores the complexity of assessing weight status in seniors and highlights the need for nuanced interpretations of BMI measurements in this demographic. Moreover, BMI serves as a useful tool to predict the risk and prognosis of certain chronic diseases. We used the Google Scholar search engine to find popular scientific articles and news that sought to critique BMI as a health standard and/or highlighted potential bias in relying on BMI to assess weight and nutritional status. The importance of this diversity is illustrated by the South Asian body habitus that is different enough from others to suggest a need for completely different cut-offs for obesity in BMI screening . Even in the global north, population diversity is increasingly the norm; in the United States, people of color made up 40% and women were 50.5% of its population in 2021 . BMI or BRI? How to Assess Your Body Weight Moreover, the omnipresent stigmatization of body size is manifest as discrimination, ostracism, harassment towards those with higher BMIs, and the internalization of negative self-imagery among individuals whose bodies do not conform to social and medical ‘norms’ (Puhl and Heuer 2010; Puhl et al. 2008). There is strong evidence to suggest that stigma underlies mechanisms linking obesity to numerous health conditions, independent of the physiological consequences of BMI. Once again, tautological reasoning is partially to blame; a person becomes unhealthy upon attaining an unhealthy BMI, implying some kind of transition in their latent health. Directly equating body size with race is too strong a comparison, to the extent that race is tied to endemic legacies and systems of oppression (Phelan and Link 2015), but one should not ignore how BMI and race exemplify how one’s phenotype affects health though non-biophysiological pathways. The protective effects of estrogen on glucose homeostasis and greater IR in men compared to women should be examined further, as these things may play important roles in CVD, DM, and other disease risks . Due to the smaller amount of subjects from groups that were not from the United States or Europe and no representation of women subjects in this study, BMI may not have been an accurate assessment of adiposity for individuals of various races, ethnicities, backgrounds, and sexes. A third search performed on Embase included the terms "body mass index," "racism," and "cardiovascular disease," uncovering 36 results. The first search was performed on PubMed using the terms, "body mass index," "history of body mass index," and "cardiovascular disease," uncovering 7,616 results. Very overweight children tend to grow up to be very overweight adults, which can lead to health problems. Set realistic goals for weight loss or gain and monitor progress with healthy range benchmarks. The goal of obesity treatment is to reach and stay at a healthy weight. The disease label opens avenues of treatment that might otherwise be closed due to an individual-level behavioral/lifestyle perspective (Rosenberg 2002). Disease categories serve as the gateway for legitimization, treatment, and reimbursement, which permits body size to be worthy of medical attention (Jutel 2014). On the one hand, the disease label is a nosologic necessity in the context of medical practice, wherein the nosology – classification and naming – of various conditions and ailments is of the utmost concern (Jutel 2014). The treatment methods that are right for you depend on your weight, your overall health and your willingness to participate in a weight-loss plan. The first treatment goal is usually a modest weight loss — 5% to 10% of your total weight. Our caring team of Mayo Clinic experts can help you with your obesity-related health concerns. To diagnose obesity, your healthcare professional may perform a physical exam and recommend some tests. How to help your child become a healthier weight A child's BMI tells us if their weight is right for their height, and the result is given as a centile (or percentile). An alternative way of calculating a safe minimum calorie-intake level is by reference to your body weight or current body weight. For people with only a small amount of weight to lose, 1,000 calories will be too much of a deficit. DEXA cannot make this differentiation, he said, but is useful for measuring total body fat and abdominal fat. As healthcare providers, we must consider each patient as a whole and consider how factors such as sex, race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status - to name a few - each affect the health, disease risk, and life expectancy of individual patients. Further research regarding the accuracy of these new anthropometric indices and their association with obesity, mortality, and cardiometabolic risks in these groups and various populations is required. It states that statistically significant differences exist when comparing the use of BMI and other anthropometric indices in evaluating disease risk and mortality among various groups. You can check a chart to determine whether your number falls into an unhealthy category—for instance, underweight is less than 18.5, overweight is 25 to 29.9, and obesity is 30 and above.This is particularly troubling for athletes and people with higher-than-average muscle mass .Furthermore, the distribution of the ratio between WC and height is similar between sexes, therefore WHtR does not require sex-specific cut points .Race and ethnicity are also ‘risk factors’ given the disproportionate toll of COVID-19 on minority individuals and communities (CDC 2020).Similar studies have been completed which analyze the relationship between body mass index and the probability of developing hypertension.This offers a clearer picture of an individual’s health status and is advisable for clinical assessments .BMI is labeled as a risk factor but in practice it is deployed as a surrogate measure of COVID-19 severity, shaping knowledge about who is most vulnerable to and responsible for severe illness in contemporary society.Use our NHS-aligned BMI calculator to determine your body mass index using British measurements. We hypothesize that in persons with normal and mild BMI elevations, BMI would have limited diagnostic performance due to its inability to discriminate between fat and lean mass. Even though BMI has been used extensively in research and clinical practice, there are very few studies testing its diagnostic accuracy and no study has done this in a large, multiethnic adult population representing men and women of many age strata. A BMI cut-off of ≥ 30 kg/m2 has a good specificity but misses more than half of people with excess fat. Despite the good correlation between BMI and BF %, the diagnostic accuracy of BMI to diagnose obesity is limited, particularly for individuals in the intermediate BMI ranges. By combining advanced body composition analysis techniques with comprehensive metabolic and fitness testing, healthcare professionals can gain a more comprehensive understanding of an individual’s health status and obesity-related risks. The waist-to-hip ratio (WHR), determined using a simple tape measure, indicates fat distribution and serves as a reliable predictor of cardiovascular risk. Body Fat Percentage measures the proportion of fat relative to total body weight, providing a more precise assessment of body composition than BMI. The assessment of total body fat requires the integration of skinfold thickness measurements at different body sites. The waist-to-hip ratio focuses specifically on the ratio between waist and hip measurements, potentially overlooking other important factors that contribute to overall body composition and health status. One key limitation of waist-to-height is that it does not account for individual variations in body shape, muscle mass, and bone structure. One disadvantage of using waist circumference to assess body fat distribution is that it provides a general measure of abdominal fat without distinguishing between subcutaneous fat and visceral fat. For example, for the same BMI, females have a higher percent of fat than males, and for similar fat-free body mass, Black women had significantly more percent of fat and, hence, a higher body weight than White women . Consequently, persons with more body fat at a lower BMI than considered obese by WHO cut-offs, termed “sarcopenic obesity” , are at higher risk of type 2 diabetes with a relative excess adiposity, but would not be successfully identified if screened by WHO BMI criteria. The so-called South Asian body habitus is thought to have higher health risks at a lower BMI than among Caucasians due to a comparatively higher proportion of body fat at the same BMI . Graph - BMI health risks The patients’ demographic characteristics, comorbid diseases, number of drugs, BMI, basic and instrumental activities of daily living (BADL and IADL), Tinetti balance and walking scale, Mini Nutritional Assessment, Geriatric Depression Scale-15, Mini-Mental State Examination, Time Up and Go test, and handgrip strength measurement were extracted from patient records. Hinging health to weight distracts from actual treatments and positive behaviors that can promote better health. It’s really unfair to you, because weight is not something entirely in our control - nor is health for that matter. Bodies exist in a wide range of shapes and sizes - curvy, thin, plus sized, skinny, fat, straight-sized, very fat, medium, large - there’s many different descriptors people like to use. However, research is pretty clear that weight is not a proxy for health. He is working on a book distilling the insights from his sabbatical, teaching, and leading retreats on trauma, integrative health, mindfulness, and well-being for health professionals, students, and the community. He is currently taking a multiyear personal and professional sabbatical to explore the relationship between childhood trauma, disease, and the processes of healing. Justin Laube, MD, is a board-certified integrative and internal medicine physician, a teacher, and a consultant with extensive expertise in integrative health, medical education, and trauma healing. Ask about common side effects for any new medication, including weight gain. Your doctor may not always inform you that weight gain is a side effect of a drug you’re being prescribed. Having a BMI greater than 30 made one ‘eligible,’ entirely from a biophysiological risk perspective, in representing a comorbidity (CDC 2021). Ultimately, the issue of delineating biophysiological from sociostructural risk had direct bearing on determining who was prioritized for COVID-19 vaccinations. The conceptualization of race in health research continues to serve as a useful parallel; there are legitimate concerns about how race being used to perpetuate biogenetic explanations (Bliss 2012; Shim 2002; Smart and Weiner), but recognition that race is a socially-meaningful category is vital for advancing justice and equity (Borrell et al. 2021; Epstein 2008). A comparable process of essentializing BMI has been at work for decades, legitimizing BMI as a surrogate marker of biophysiological health, while ignoring the psychosocial implications of its being a marker of appearance and status. When measuring health risks across a population, BMI can be advantageous, especially because it’s more widely used than other weight measurement approaches, says William Yancy, MD, a professor of medicine at the Duke University School of Medicine in Durham, North Carolina. BMI is a number based on your height and weight, which helps your provider determine whether you have obesity, overweight, within a normal range, or underweight. Your body mass index (BMI) depends on your weight and height. Situated between the two, biomarkers are perhaps less definitive in suggesting a mediated process by which individuals may be at future risk for poor health without necessarily being unhealthy at present (Loucks et al. 2008).