What is your Body Mass Index (BMI)?

Hi,

I had planned to update this daily so sorry about yesterday! I was hoping that by now my video would be ready, but unfortunately having not done one before there are some teething problems! Hopefully it will be up soon.

One of the things I talk about in my video is BMI or Body Mass Index. Basically, this is a measure of overall body fat. It gives a good guide as to whether or not an individual is healthy as what is really important is not actually our weight but how much excess fat we are carrying. For most adults the calculators are reasonably accurate, although the calculations can be flawed.

They do not always work well for children, adolescents, older people and can be particularly inaccurate for those with high ratio's of muscle such as body builders and athletes. This is because they assume a certain percentage of body weight will be fat but this is a generalization based on the average adult. BMI can also vary with race. For most of us, however, they are more than accurate enough.

A healthy BMI is generally considered to be between 18.5 and 24.9 meaning individuals falling below this line have too little body fat and above that too much. A BMI of 30 or above indicates obesity and all of it's poor health implications (mine's a whopping 37!!)

If you wish to know your BMI I have found a good calculator on the National Health Service (NHS) website.

http://www.nhs.uk/Tools/Pages/Healthyweightcalculator.aspx?Tag=Calculators?WT.srch=1

Have a great day, and please look out for my next update.

Kim