See your BMI on a graph

Health difficulties from being overweight

These difficulties are associated with obese and overweight adults

Adults whose Body Mass Index is greater than 25 (overweight) or whose BMI is greater than 30 (obese) have a marked increase in risk for various diseases and health conditions, including,:

• Osteoarthritis (degenerative joint disease)
• Sleep apnea and respiratory problems (problems breathing during sleep, chest and lung problems)
• Some cancers (endometrial, breast, and colon)
• Hypertension (elevated blood pressure)
• Diabetes mellitus type 2 (high blood sugar)
• Coronary heart disease (plaque build-up along the inner walls of the arteries of the heart)
• Stroke (loss of brain function due to a disturbance in the blood supply to the brain)
• Dyslipidemia (heightened LDL cholesterol, reduced HDL cholesterol)
• Gallbladder disease (gallstones, disruption of bile functions )

Derivation

B.M.I. Prime is simple way of defining a single figure that is not immedieately related to any other units of measurement, but which can quickly and easily rank a person into a category. Eg:

• BMI Prime < 0.74 = Underweight
• BMI Prime > 0.74 and < 1.00 = Optimal weight
• BMI Prime > 1 = Overweight

BMI, sometimes known as the Quetelet index, is a measure used to estimate a person's body shape based upon a person' weight and height. It originated in Belguim around the 1840's by Adolphe Quetelet. It is a simple calculation based on the individual's body weight divided by the square of their height.

The formula

The formula below is used to measure BMI

• BMI = weight(kilograms) / height² (metres²)         (Metric Units)
• BMI = 703 . weight(pounds) / height² (inches²)         (Imperial Units)

BMI limitations

BMI categories are generally regarded as a satisfactory tool for measuring whether sedentary individuals are underweight, overweight or obese with various exceptions, such as: athletes, children, the elderly, and the infirm.
See wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_mass_index#Limitationsinfomation.