You may also wish to contact the RUSH Center. If you are worried about your BMI or are trying to lose weight, talk to your primary care doctor. Note that these are approximate values, and they are intended to be used only as a rough guide. Having a BMI higher than 24.9 may mean you are overweight. An estimation of body fat using the skinfold method would be a more accurate choice. Cross reference your height from the left column and your weight to. Use the tool on this page to calculate your BMI. If you are a person with an athletic or muscular build, do not use BMI as the only method to assess your body composition. Because muscle weighs more than fat, those who have well-developed muscles typically appear overweight or obese according to the BMI reference chart. BMI is calculated by dividing your weight in pounds by the square of your height in inches, and then multiplying by a conversion factor of 703, according to the CDC. People who know their weight and height can use a BMI calculator to work out their BMI. However, since body weight (and not percent body fat) is used in determining BMI, there may be problems when using BMI to assess people who are heavily muscled (such as body builders) or who have an athletic body type. A moderate BMI for females is usually 18.524.9.

The table above provides established BMI norms based on various categories of health and fitness.įor most people, BMI is a quick and easy way to assess body composition, which is why it is so commonly used. Thus, working toward weight loss if you are overweight or obese can have a profound positive effect on your health. Obesity-related diseases include heart disease, type 2 diabetes, hypertension, and stroke. Understanding your body composition is valuable because a person's level of body fat is directly correlated with health outcomes. It is a measurement that incorporates a persons body weight and height to calculate the total amount of body fat they have.

This assessment compares your body weight to your height to come up with a value that indicates whether you are underweight, normal weight, overweight, or obese. Body mass index (BMI) is a measure of body fat based on height and weight that applies to adult men and women.

A frequently used index to assess a person's body composition (or amount of body fat) is called the body mass index, or BMI.

Bmi chart women calculator