You drink isotope-rich water and provide a sample of bodily fluids that tell doctors about your body’s performance. X-rays (which move through fat, muscle, and bone at different speeds) are used to calculate body fat percentage. Your weight is measured while you’re immersed in water and compared to your weight on dry land. An electric current is passed through your body to estimate body fat percentage. Folds of skin are pinched and measured at different points around your body. A doctor can run different tests on you to get as accurate a picture as humanly possible. If you want to get serious about your body fat, you might have to take a trip to the lab. While waist circumference alone can help track your fat loss journey, it’s less handy when comparing yourself with others. It doesn’t account for height, age, or other criticisms we fired at BMI. Now, this isn’t a perfect measurement of health either. That will give you a good indicator of how much visceral fat you may have. Waist circumferenceĮven easier than measuring WHR is simply measuring the circumference of your waist. Some limited evidence suggests WHR might be a more accurate predictor of health outcomes than BMI, especially in those who are elderly. The general idea is that your hips should be wider than your waist. Measure around your hips where they’re widest.Measure around your waist where it’s thinnest (usually around your belly button).It’s an accurate way to measure body fat, particularly that extra-harmful visceral fat. WHR measures the circumference of your waist compared to that of your hips. Multiple efforts have been made to set different scoring bands for different ethnic groups, but these still aren’t perfect.ĭecided BMI isn’t giving you the whole picture? There are other ways to measure body fat and get a snapshot of your health. BMI doesn’t account for ethnicityĪs a health metric, BMI can’t account for genetic differences between ethnicities. For postmenopausal women, an underweight BMI might be more serious than for someone who is younger. BMI and ageīeing overweight can have different outcomes as we get older. Fat around your organs (aka visceral fat) poses a greater health risk than that found in your booty and boobs. Women hold fat in different areas of the body than men.Īlso, there’s body fat, and then there’s body fat. People who are anatomically female have a different body fat distribution than those who are anatomically male. Those with significant muscle definition and low body fat percentage might be considered overweight on the BMI scale. Muscle is more dense than fat, so one pound of fat will take up more space than one pound of muscle. It can be particularly inaccurate when we account for: There’s a growing medical opinion that BMI is too simplistic. It’s geared towards averages, so it’s not as accurate for those with above-average heights – tall or short. Also see safeguards for BMI measurement in schools.What are the drawbacks and criticisms of BMI for women?īMI is simple, but it’s far from a perfect measurement of health. School staff, child care leaders, and other professionals can use this spreadsheet to compute BMI for as many as 2,000 children. Use this calculator for children and teens, aged 2 through 19 years old. This calculator provides BMI and the corresponding BMI-for-age percentile on a CDC BMI-for-age growth chart. CDC Child and Teen BMI Calculator WidgetĪdd this widget to your website. Use this calculator for adults, 20 years old and older. This calculator provides BMI and the corresponding weight category. It is used to screen for weight categories that may lead to health problems. BMI is a reliable indicator of body fatness for most people. Adult Body Mass Index Calculator WidgetĪdd this widget to your website to let anyone calculate their BMI.Information about BMI and interpreting the BMI percentile for children and teens. Information about BMI and interpreting this number for adults. How Do I Interpret Body Mass Index Information? BMI screens for weight categories that may lead to health problems, but it does not diagnose the body fatness or health of an individual. A high BMI can indicate high body fatness. Body Mass Index (BMI) is a person’s weight in kilograms (or pounds) divided by the square of height in meters (or feet).
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