You have probably heard of BMI, although you may not know it by its acronym. He BMI or body mass index It is a tool used to estimate whether a person is in a suitable weight range for their height or not, although to be rigorous we should not stick solely to this parameter to reach a conclusion.
many people live worried about their weight many! And although the BMI is not valid by itself to make a complete diagnosis, it is an indicative tool within everyone's reach. It is also simple, since anyone can calculate this index at home and consult the results in tables. Do you want to do it? Are you curious to know if your weight is right? We teach you how.
What is the BMI?
Main but not unique, since as nutritionists warn, this by itself cannot lead to a complete nutritional diagnosis. Because? Because it takes into account the weight/height ratio but not body composition which can vary greatly between people of the same weight and height. And it is that not all of us have the same percentage of muscle or fat.
How do I calculate the BMI?
Calculating the BMI is very simple and anyone can do it with a calculator. Do you have one handy? To calculate it, you will only have to divide the weight, expressed in kilos, between the height, expressed in meters and raised to the square. Do you already have a number?
If you don't have a calculator and you can't pick up your mobile, you have online tools to calculate it. You can do it through the attached table or enter your data in some of the pages that calculate it quickly as calculoimc.com y ocu.org.
Analysis of the results
With the result in hand, you could compare in tables if your weight is adequate according to your height. Are generic tables for women and adult men from the World Health Organization offer up to seven windows as results:
- <16: Severe thinness
- 16 – 16,9: Very underweight
- 16,99 – 18.49: Underweight
- 18.50 – 24.99: Normal weight
- 25.00 – 29.99: Overshoot
- 30.00 – 34.99: Obesity grade I
- 35.00 – 40.00: Obesity grade II
- >40.00: Obesity grade III
So according to these a BMI between 18,5 and 24,9 represents the ideal weight and have a lower risk of heart and cardiovascular diseases. A BMI below 18,5 could indicate underweight and one above 25, overweight or obesity depending on the result.
Don't feel like going around consulting values and tables? In the OCU website entering weight, height, gender and age does all the work and offers you an assessment directly of the result. If you are simply curious to know which window you are in, enter your data and clear up your doubts. It's simple, it's fast and you avoid calculators and tables.
Conclusion
You now know that the BMI is an indicator of the relationship between a person's body mass and their height. Do you know how to calculate it? and how to interpret the results. But also that it is not useful for carrying out a deep analysis and that it is a nutrition professional who should assess our health if we are really interested.
To make a diagnosis, a nutritionist will use other data in addition to the BMI. A blood analysis, a muscle fat analysis and the measurement of the abdominal perimeter together with the patient's habits are data that they usually collect to study each case and issue a diagnosis.
Are you curious to really know how you are on a nutritional level and what you could improve? Make an appointment with a nutritionist to carry out a study. You will leave with more useful information than you expected and it is that although sometimes we believe that we do things well, it is not always so.