Body Weight Chart
What is a Body Weight Chart and BMI?
A BODY WEIGHT CHART and BMI are used to calculate ideal body weight.
"How much should I weigh?" you ask. You can use a body weight chart to answer this and other questions which are essential for healthy eating and healthy living. A body mass indicator, or body weight chart, essentially tells you for a certain height and build and gender, how much you should way to have a certain percentage of fat and the rest muscle. Usually, you will only want %5 body fat, or there abouts, and an ideal body weight chart will tell you where that is.
No matter what your body weight, being an unhealthy size can seriously affect your health and well being, so it is very important to determine whether your body falls in to the acceptable ranges that are considered healthy. One thing that many people don't realize is that being under weight can be just as unhealthy as being overweight. I found it interesting that BMI was first used by life insurance companies to measure a healthy weight. BMI charts were officially put in place in 1998 as the healthy weight standard, so that doctors, dietitians, etc… were all on the same page and using the correct numbers. It is officially the measurement of choice for most health professionals.
To calculate BMI, you need to divide your weight in pounds by your hight in inches squared, then multiply the results by a conversion factor of 703.
Example:
5 feet 5 inches = 65 inches150 pounds
[150 / (65) [150 ÷ (65)2] x 703 = 24.96. An easier way is to use the BMI calculator in the CDC website here: http://www.cdc.gov/healthyweight/assessing/bmi/
To calculate BMI, you need to divide your weight in pounds by your hight in inches squared, then multiply the results by a conversion factor of 703.
Example:
5 feet 5 inches = 65 inches150 pounds
[150 / (65) [150 ÷ (65)2] x 703 = 24.96. An easier way is to use the BMI calculator in the CDC website here: http://www.cdc.gov/healthyweight/assessing/bmi/
Are Body Weight Charts accurate?
I started looking into the body weight chart because I never felt like I was over weight, but the BMI charts would typically rate me as over weight, so I started to investigate this further. As it turns out, I am overweight by about 15-20 pounds. I fit the criteria given that I'm just the average adult.
BMI does not take into account age, gender, or muscle mass. Nor does it distinguish between lean body mass and fat mass. Some people, such as heavily muscled athletes, may have a high BMI even though they don't have a high percentage of body fat. In others, such as elderly people, BMI may appear normal even though muscle has been lost with aging.
Health professionals need to do further assessments to fully evaluate health risks. These assessments would include measurements of body fat percentage, diet history, exercise patterns, and family history.
Body Weight Charts for Children and Teens:
The CDC states the following for children and teens, "Although the BMI number is calculated the same way for children and adults, the criteria used to interpret the meaning of the BMI number for children and teens are different from those used for adults. For children and teens, BMI age- and sex-specific percentiles are used for two reasons:
- The amount of body fat changes with age.
- The amount of body fat differs between girls and boys.
The CDC BMI-for-age growth charts take into account these differences and allow translation of a BMI number into a percentile for a child's sex and age.
You can access the Children and Teen BMI Calculator at:
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To learn more about the Body Weight Chart, you can go to Web MD, or the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and prevention) websites above.
