Health is wealth, is what we always look about? Whatever is the age we always try to make fit ourselves in terms of beauty and fitness? At the present scenario most of us are health conscious and we are working out more on our body fitness, so as to avoid the problems in the future. As our daily life is getting hectic we are facing so many health problems. The culture, Lifestyle has also changed a lot. We are adapting different ways of food systems.

Hence, all these have their impact on our body. The major problem that we always think of is our body weight. Therefore the most common think that we are discussing now is the body weight and height. In other words, the exact weight of the body according to our height.
BMI- Body mass index is a statistical measure which speaks about the person's weight and height. In lay man terms, it gives us the exact weight required for that height. It makes a statistical comparison between the height and weight of our body to give us the calculative result, which tells us the required weight for that height. Depending upon that we can Increase, decrease or maintain the weight. Most of us take it as a tool for our body weight measurement. It does not calculate the body fat. It gives us three kinds of ideas with the calculative results such as underweight, overweight, idle or obese. Most of us use it as a diagnostic tool.

How does BMI calculated? Is the question comes to our mind. BMI is calculated on our height and weight basis. The weight is in Kg's and height is in cm.

BMI = mass (kg)/ height (m)2

Apart from the above measurement tool, it can be done by charts. The chart with weight in horizontal axis and height is in Vertical Axis. The result can be find out by using different colors.

From Either way we can calculate the BMI. There is a benchmark of value for the reference of result. The values are as

Category Range - kg/m2
Severely Underweight < 16.5
Underweight 16.5-18.5
Normal 18.5-24.9
Overweight 25-30
Obese I 30.1-34.9
Obese II 35-40
Obese III >40

Hence according to the above values we can conclude the category. For ex: if the height is 170 cm and weight is 75kg. Then the BMI will be 75/170= 26.0. This is Overweight and need to maintain a weight in between 18.5- 24.9 range.

From the above tool we can know the result. Because of the Overweight the risks can be High Blood Pressure, High Cholesterol, High Glucose (Diabetes), Cardiac Problems etc. Therefore we need to measure our BMI and try to keep ourselves fit.

For children it is used in different way. It is calculated with the percentiles of the same sex and age. And for them a BMI of less than 5th percentile is Underweight, More than 95th percentile is called as Overweight. So there are different measures to choose upon.

This tool is invented between 1830-1850 by Mr. Belgian Polymath Adolphe Quetelet During the course of Developing Social Physics. Hence from the above we can make clear that by checking out the BMI and doing regular exercise we can make ourselves fit.

About Author / Additional Info:
An MBA from GITAM University, India.

Reference: Wikipedia