Body mass index
A graph of body mass index as a function of body mass and body height is
shown above. The dashed lines represent subdivisions within a major
class. For instance the "Underweight" classification is further divided
into "severe", "moderate", and "mild" subclasses.[1]
The index was devised by Adolphe Quetelet during the course of developing what he called "social physics", between 1830 and 1850.[2] The BMI for a person is defined as their body mass divided by the square of their height—with the value universally being given in units of kg/m2. So if the weight is in kilograms and the height in metres, the result is immediate, if pounds and inches are used, a conversion factor of 703 (kg/m2)/(lb/in2) must be applied.
There are a wide variety of contexts where the BMI of an individual can be used as a simple method to assess how much the recorded body weight departs from what is healthy or desirable for a person of that height. There is, however, some debate about which values on the BMI scale the thresholds for 'underweight', 'overweight' and 'obese' should be set.
| Category | BMI range – kg/m2 | BMI Prime |
|---|---|---|
| Very severely underweight | less than 15 | less than 0.60 |
| Severely underweight | from 15.0 to 16.0 | from 0.60 to 0.64 |
| Underweight | from 16.0 to 18.5 | from 0.64 to 0.74 |
| Normal (healthy weight) | from 18.5 to 25 | from 0.74 to 1.0 |
| Overweight | from 25 to 30 | from 1.0 to 1.2 |
| Obese Class I (Moderately obese) | from 30 to 35 | from 1.2 to 1.4 |
| Obese Class II (Severely obese) | from 35 to 40 | from 1.4 to 1.6 |
| Obese Class III (Very severely obese) | over 40 | over 1.6 |
THANKS TO Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia______________________________________________________________________________
U.S. National Center for Health Statistics:
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