A person's body mass index is a number calculated based on their height and weight. It is used for a comparative analysis of people with similar heights. The body mass index is a brainchild of a Belgian statistician and mathematician named Adolphe Quatelet who created the BMI sometime from1830 to 1850. To calculate the BMI, divide the person's weight in kilograms by their height in meters squared.
The Body Mass Index has been in use as a medical benchmark for obesity and is the statistical estimate for Adiposity. It is also the standard employed by the WHO (World Health Organization) for its obesity statistics.
This number was introduced to the public through the government's efforts to promote sanguinity, nutritional knowledge, and healthy eating habits. This simple statistic has rendered itself very important since it can adapt itself to continuous changes inherent in a community and can indicate the economic development on a nutritional basis.
The BMI was promoted as a simple rule of thumb that any individual of a particular height can calculate at home. It might not be the best possible indicator with regard to weight and health, as it can be unreliable in children, athletes, and the elderly.
It's quite simple to get an idea for the approximate type of body weight using the BMI. Roughly, an individual with BMI of 19 or less can be classified as underweight and is liable to suffer from malnutrition and other such eating disorders. A BMI of 25 is considered overweight and a BMI of 30 would classify as extremely obese.
The US National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey reported that about 59 % of American men and 49% of American women are overweight and over 2% of men and 4% of women were reported to be extremely obese.
These alarming reports only prove the BMI to be a more critical in America today rather than just an easy index for a self- check. It is to be noted that the BMI is not a fully reliable statistic by itself and hence health and nutrition recommendations to an individual cannot be made using just the BMI.
Calculating Body Mass Index
He graduated out of University of Ghent with a doctorate in mathematics and then set out to study the new field of "social sciences" which only included Astronomy at the time.
Somewhere around 1830, Quatelet emerged as a firm believer in the influence of statistics and probability in the day-to-day human affairs. He found it possible to gather information about the regular day-to-day life of any cross-section of the population using the same statistical techniques he was so well versed in.
The body mass index (BMI) is the relationship between the height and weight of an individual, which directly correlates to the body fat contained within the body and explains the degree of health risk the person has. It is measured as BMI = body weight in kilograms divided by height in meters squared.
The Body Mass Index is quite a useful statistic and has been in use over the years all over the world. It determines the degree of healthiness one enjoys. The BMI assesses your weight in relation to your height. A healthy BMI for an adult generally falls between 18.5 and 25. If the BMI is more than 25, the individuals are probably classified as overweight, and if it is 30 or higher, one is considered obese, and 40 or higher, extremely obese.
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