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Healthy Weight
AsthmaHealth: Body Mass Index BMI
The BMI is also called the Body Mass Index or Quetelet index. The Body Mass Index is a statistical measure of your weight according to your height. As you can image the BMI does not say much about your health or fitness. If you are curious who invented the body mass index, Wikipedia knows that the BMI "was invented between 1830 and 1850 by the Belgian polymath Adolphe Quetelet during the course of developing "social physics".
body mass index formula
The BMI can be calculated by dividing your height in kilograms by your height in square meters. For example, if you weight 65 kilograms and you are 1.7 meter tall, the equation would be: 65 divided by 1.7 x 1.7. The result is 2.9 - Ideally you have a BMI between 20 and 25. You can use a simple calculator to determine your body mass index.
body mass index info
The body mass index does not tell you if you are too heavy for your age and height or not. That is just because the calculation does not include the information where the weight is coming from. For example, muscle mass is heavier than fat. Even without checking your body mass index on a regular basis, you know exactly if you are too fat, too heavy or too light. Just look into a mirror or ask friends. This can make finding a healthy weight far more easy than looking at body mass index tables.
