To determine whether a person is over weight the world health organization has proposed some benchmark calculations. Calculating the body mass index is the best known method to find out whether you are over weight.
Body Mass Index (BMI)
Body mass index or BMI is a measure based on height and weight. BMI is calculated by dividing your body weight in kilograms by the square of your height in meters.
For example suppose a person ‘A’ weighing 70 kg with a height of 170 cm need to know his BMI ,
BMI is Total weight in KG/Square of height in meters.
In this case ‘A’ is weighing 70 Kg.
Height is 170-cm. Here the height is provided in centimeter. Therefore needs to be converted into meters.
Then the height ‘A’ in meters is 170/100is 1.7m.
Now let us calculate the BMI of the person,
BMI of the person = 70/(1.7*1.7) = 70/2.89 = 24.22
Which is normal or rather healthy. A measure above 30 is considered to be obese. However this could be different in different countries. Regional factors influences the BMI bench marks in such countries. For example BMI above 25 considered obese in Japan. In China it is above 28 which is considered obese. According to WHO norms BMI above 25 and below 30 is considered as over weight. Beyond 30 is considered obese. BMI level between 21 and 25 is considered healthy.
Waist Measure.
Most easy way to identify obesity is by measuring the waist. How ever it is not scientific, considering the facts that obesity occurs in different forms and the height vary from one person to another. In other words or rather lightly said it is unhealthy if men are wearing under wears of size in excess of 100 cms and women above 90 cms.
Waist to Hip Ratio
A bench mark index to measure a rather big health issue like protruded belly is the waist to hip ratio. It is dangerous to have larger belly on a rather lean body. It is more scientific to measure the waist hip ratio.
Measure the widest portion below the belly button. This is waist measure. Leave the stomach loose while taking the measures. Also take the measure from the widest part of the hips. This is the hip measure. Now divide the waist measure by hip measure. This gives the waist hip ratio.
In Men
Waist hip ratio below 0.9 is considered healthy. Between 0.9 to 0.95 is fat but healthy. Above 0.95 is overly fat. Below 0.75 is lean and unhealthy.
In Women
0.76 to 0.80 is healthy . 0.80 to 0.85 is fat but not dangerous. Above 0.85 is dangerously fat should be subjected to some serious weight loss regime
