Body Mass Index (BMI) is a standard health assessment tool that is used by health practitioners to assess our general health. It is also used to see how likely it will be for us to contract certain health conditions such as diabetes.
Calculating your BMI
Calculating your BMI is not only used by health practitioners and insurers, but it can be used by people who want to know what a healthy weight for their height and gender is. You can use our BMI calculator to find out if your current weight is healthy. But how accurate is this?
The accuracy of BMI Calculators
In recent years, studies have revealed that BMI calculators are good at giving an estimate of healthy to poor weight ratios along with possible conditions that could be developed by a person in a certain weight bracket. However, it has also revealed that it does not take into account gender differences or muscle mass, skewing the results for some people. There has been a move towards measuring the circumference of your waist to get a more accurate reading of our BMI to help detect health issues that we could develop over time.
Should we stop using the BMI calculator?
Not entirely. The purpose of the BMI calculator is to give an estimate of where your Weight currently is. A more accurate reading of your BMI would be to measure the circumference of your waist. Studies have revealed that people who have a larger waist are prone to diseases such as diabetes. BMI calculators may not be able to identify the condition of your cardiovascular health or other illnesses such as cholesterol, blood sugar or blood pressure. However, it can give you an estimate of where your health is. Therefore, you can use the calculator but make sure to check in with a health practitioner such as your doctor and a qualified dietician to see that all is in order.
