Components Of Fitness

One term you may hear often when talking about being fit and healthy is you body mass index, or BMI. But more than likely, you have no idea what body mass index is, why its important, or what it is a measure of.

Simply put, BMI is a comparison of your body fat to your height. By comparing your total body fat to your height you are able to get a better determinant of whether or not you are actually over weight. For example, you may be 6 foot 9 and weigh 240 pounds. By most standards you would be considered overweight, but when the element of your height is thrown into the calculation, a comparison of your height to weight may find that you are actually at a very healthy weight.

Calculating your BMI is a simple process and can be done by yourself. First you must know your height and weight, and remember if you are measuring in inches or feet, to measure your weight in pounds, and if you are measuring in cm or meters use kilograms. Divide your total weight by your total height squared. So for example if you weighed 150 pounds and were 6 feet tall you would divide 150 by 72^{2 (5184). You then multiply this answer by 703 and you should now know your body mass index.}

However it is important to remember that a calculation of your BMI only takes into account two factors: your weight and height, meaning. A muscular athlete would find that based on their BMI calculation they are overweight, but really they are at a healthy weight because muscle weights more than fat, and when compared with their height the BMI produced would be incorrect and inaccurate.

The following are what your BMI translate into health and weight wise:

- BMI of 18.5 is considered as being underweight.
- BMI range of 18.5 – 24.9 is considered normal.
- BMI range of 25.0 – 29.9 is defined as overweight.
- BMI of 30.0 and above is categorized as obese.