BMI is short for Body Mass Index. It’s a simple way to gauge if someone is overweight and it is a proxy for measuring body fatness.
Excess body fat, not weight alone, is what will ultimately harm your cardiovascular health.
BMI’s popularity is due to it being accessible and non-invasive. Studies demonstrate that it correlates well with body fat and future health risks. People with high BMI are more likely to succumb to morbidity or death.
BMI is calculated as follows:
BMI= weight in kg / height2 in m
Weight Status
For adults aged ≥ 20 years, the interpretation for weight status is as follows:
| BMI | Weight Status |
| ≤ 18.5 | Underweight |
| 18.5-24.9 | Healthy Weight |
| 25.0-29.9 | Overweight |
| ≥ 30.0 | Obesity |
If your weight status is overweight or obese, you will be at greater risk of cardiovascular disease.
However, relying solely on BMI to measure whether you’re overweight or not, may not always be accurate since there are some limitations.
Limitations of BMI
BMI does not take into consideration the following:
❌Naturally, muscular individuals or highly-trained athletes will have more muscle mass and therefore a higher BMI.
❌Women, with the same BMI as men, on average have higher body fat than men.
❌A young adult will usually have less body fat than an older adult with the equivalent BMI
And there’s one more thing that isn’t common knowledge.
BMI standards does not apply to Asians?
There’s also an ongoing argument about whether the same BMI standards can be applied to Asians.
In some studies, it has been shown that Asians are at higher risk for metabolic syndrome at equivalent and lower BMIs than Caucasians.
This could be due to Asians having lower muscle mass at equivalent BMIs, compared to Caucasians.
Other Body Fat Measures
Although BMI can be an easy way to gauge body fatness, if you want to have a true measure of your body fat you need to either get a:
✔️DEXA scan (done in hospitals)
✔️Underwater body weighing (done in swimming pools)
✔️the easiest way is an InBody assessment (available at BC24HK)
Contact us if you wish to check your true body fat levels and assess your cardiovascular health risk with a convenient and simple InBody assessment.
