Free Calorie Meal Plans & Metabolic Science

Body mass index calculator: how to calculate your body mass index (bmi) and standard ranges for women and men.

Your body mass index (BMI) is a crude calculation of your body weight in reference to your height.

The body mass index calculation is commonly used as a general measure of whether a person's body weight is appropriate for their height. Specifically, the result produced from the BMI tool is used to determine whether a person is underweight, normal weight, overweight, or obese based on where the value falls within a given range. These BMI levels vary by area and age, and are subdivided into subcategories such as extremely underweight or severely obese. Being overweight or underweight can have serious health consequences, therefore while BMI is an imprecise measure of healthy body weight, it can help determine whether more testing or action is needed. Refer to the tool below to view the various BMI-based categories utilized by the calculator.

Again, being underweight or obese are recognized risk factors for many diseases, namely hypertension, diabetes, hyperlipidemias, and perhaps certain types of cancers.

BMI Estimator Inaccuracies

Weight is not the problem, body fat is. For example, look at the many athletes and bodybuilders that carry a high percentage of lean body mass. Sure, they are heavy and may even flunk the standardized BMI equation, but they have a lower likelihood of nearly all the diseases connected to obesity.

If you are more muscular than the average person, you should focus on your body fat numbers and ditch calculating the BMI measurements. It's hauling around too much fat that's detrimental to your health and can lead to different cancers, increased cholesterol and blood pressure, and even diabetes.

Simply by losing body fat, you can decrease your odds of developing these conditions. For that reason, we recommend the body composition analyzer regardless of weight or gender. However, the body mass index calculator is still a variable tool for those who are of average size and build.