BMI can help you and your healthcare provider determine if your weight is risky to your health. Screening for excess weight is important because having too much fat in our bodies increases our health risks. These are conditions where someone’s weight is greater than what is deemed to be a normal or healthy weight. Today, BMI is used to define if a person has overweight and obesity. BMI was first developed by a scientist in 1832, then renamed “body mass index” in 1974. It is an easy way to screen for having overweight or obesity. What is BMI?īMI is a proxy for a person’s body fat. Finally, we reviewed the most recent studies on assessments of and trends in obesity. We also consulted leading public health organizations like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and World Health Organization (WHO), which most clinicians look to for guidance and treatment recommendations.
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She has several years of experience bringing complex clinical information to the public to help empower them to make decisions about their health.įor this guide, we consulted with renowned obesity medicine expert Fatima Cody Stanford, MD, MPH, MPA, at Harvard Medical School and the Massachusetts General Hospital Weight Center in Boston. She covers a broad range of clinical topics and writes for many audiences, from patients and their families to healthcare professionals. For many years, she has combined her interests in clinical medicine with her passion for medical education. Mandy Armitage, MD, is a physician, freelance medical writer, and consultant. This guide is for anyone who wants to know more about BMI, how it applies to you, and why it should be taken with a grain of salt. BMI is not a one-size-fits-all kind of tool, so it may not always give us a clear picture of our health. That said, there are problems with using BMI as a measure for disease risk. You can also calculate your own BMI at home. For these reasons, BMI is commonly used by healthcare providers worldwide. However, it is quick, cheap, and easy to calculate. Like many obesity and public health bodies, we talk about having overweight and obesity, instead of being overweight or obese.īMI is a poor estimate of body fat, as it does not calculate body fat directly. But a person’s weight does not define them.
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A person’s BMI and weight can affect a person’s overall health and their risk of other diseases. Having excess weight is considered a chronic disease. Body mass index, or BMI, is a tool used to determine someone's weight status: