Whats My Bmi

Many may hear of body mass index or BMI and ask themselves, whats my BMI? Invented by a Belgian astronomer, mathematician, statistician, and sociologist named Adolphe Quetelet, the body mass index is an approximation based on educated information of an individual's body fat. It was first developed back in the mid 1800s and is still in use today by physical trainers and medical professionals.

The body mass index is not an actual measurement of one's body fat percentage and is purely based on a formula to provide a best estimate in dieting and nutrition plans. It is defined as body weight divided by the square of body height. When asking whats my BMI, the common terminology and more popular expression of terms comes from a paper published in the Journal of Chronic Diseases back in 1972. With the increasing commonality of obesity in western cultures, there was growing interest in determining body fat. Body Mass Index provided a simple measure of fatness or thinness in a person, which allowed more open discussion among health professionals.

While BMI can be fairly accurate using the formula, several factors can often skew the numbers, resulting in uncharacteristically high and inaccurate results. For example, very tall individuals may not like the numbers they would get if asking whats my BMI. Due to the formula, body dimensions doubling as in taller heights will often result in much higher BMI and inaccurate fat levels.

In determining obesity, the BMI level to watch for is one of 30 or above. In the mid 1990s a survey done by the US National Health and Nutritional Examination concluded that 59of men in the country had a BMI above 25 and 49 of women had the same results. A more recent survey concluded that 63 of Americans were overweight and 26 were in the obese levels meaning BMIs of 30 or above. A rather thin woman asking whats my BMI would lead to speculation on what those levels meant, since the woman in question might potentially be underweight. Doctors largely disagree on the BMI level to determine being at an unhealthy low weight.

Due to the ease of calculating BMI without the need for expensive equipment, it has been widely accepted into use, even becoming the standard for recording obesity statistics by the World Health Organization. BMI categories and calculations however don't account for individual factors such as musculature, proportions of bones, cartilage, and water weight. These inaccuracies are more prominent in athletes since build up of muscle adds to body mass, resulting in abnormally high and negative readings.

Asking whats my BMI may seem a simple question, and the number may in turn be a simple calculation away. However body mass index has shortcomings that are well established and acknowledged by the medical community. These shortcomings can be the difference between accurate determination of fat percentages and a falsely slanted result indicating poor health and body condition. Generally the best approach is to treat body mass index or BMI as a guideline, not a rule, and to maintain an effective nutrition and exercise regimen.