BMI healthy
weight calculator
A good way to check if you're a healthy weight is to
use the Body Mass Index (BMI). Your
BMI is a measure of whether you're a healthy weight for your height.
It can indicate whether
you're at raised risk of the serious health problems that are linked to
being overweight, such as type 2 diabetes, heart disease and
certain cancers.
For further reading on BMI,
click here.
Below is some information on
how the calculation is performed by the NHS Choices BMI healthy weight calculator,
as well as details of who to contact if you have concerns about you or your
child’s BMI.
Information
on calculation
To understand the results, it
helps to know how they are calculated.
Adult results
For adults, the body mass index (BMI) is used to calculate
whether a person is underweight, a healthy weight, overweight or obese for
their height. BMI allows for natural variations in body shape, giving a healthy
weight range for a particular height. The calculation divides the adult's
weight in kilograms by their height in metres squared.
Child results
For children, BMI is used differently, as the
child's age and sex have to be taken into account. To do this, a child
growth chart is used to convert the 'BMI' into a 'BMI centile'.
The BMI centile can be used to determine whether
a child's BMI is within the healthy range or not.
Note: There are a number of
growth references available for this purpose. This calculator uses the British
1990 Growth Reference for children aged four and over, and the WHO Growth
Standards for children younger than four years.
The National Child Measurement Programme
As part of the National Child
Measurement Programme, your child will be measured at school. Following this,
you may receive a letter with your child's height, weight and BMI result. The
letter may show the height and weight in both metric (i.e. centimetres and
kilograms) and imperial (feet and inches and stones and pounds) units.
Please be aware that the imperial measurements on the letter may have been
rounded up or down. Therefore, if you enter your child's height and weight as
shown on the letter, you will need to input the metric measurements as these
are more precise. Alternatively, you might want to measure your child yourself.
This calculator uses the clinical categories: "underweight",
"healthy weight", "overweight" or "obese". Obese
is a medical term used by doctors and health professionals. If you have
received your child's results from the National Child Measurement Programme,
you may notice that the term "very overweight" was used instead of
"obese", but the results were calculated in the same way.
Need
to speak to someone?
Any
concerns about weight or growth should be discussed with a health worker.
You can speak to your:
NHS Choices 2011