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BMI (Body Mass Index) is a measurement of body fat based on height and weight that applies to both men and women between the ages of 18 and 65 years.
BMI can be used to indicate if you are overweight, obese, underweight or normal. A healthy BMI score is between 20 and 25. A score below 20 indicates that you may be underweight; a value above 25 indicates that you may be overweight.
You can calculate your BMI by using our BMI Calculator below, or by using the BMI Formula.
Please remember, however, that this is only one of many possible ways to assess your weight. If you have any concerns about your weight, please discuss them with your physician, who is in a position, unlike this BMI calculator, to address your specific individual situation.
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You use energy no matter what you're doing, even when sleeping. The BMR Calculator will calculate your Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR); the number of calories you'd burn if you stayed in bed all day.
If you've noticed that every year, it becomes harder to eat whatever you want and stay slim, you've also learnt that your BMR decreases as you age. Likewise, depriving yourself of food in hopes of losing weight also decreases your BMR, a foil to your intentions. However, a regular routine of cardiovascular exercise can increase your BMR, improving your health and fitness when your body's ability to burn energy gradually slows down.
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This Body Fat calculator is based on a formula developed by the US Navy.
First, your body fat percentage is simply the percentage of fat your body contains. If you weigh 140 pounds and are 10% fat, it means that your body consists of 14 pounds fat and 126 pounds lean body mass (bone, muscle, organ tissue, blood,...).
A certain amount of fat is essential to bodily functions. Fat regulates body temperature, cushions and insulates organs and tissues and is the main form of the body's energy storage. Check out this Body Fat Chart which describes fat ranges and their associated categories.
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| Body Fat Percentage Categories |
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| Classification | Women (% fat) | Men (% fat) |
| Essential Fat | 10-12% | 2-4% |
| Athletes | 14-20% | 6-13% |
| Fitness | 21-24% | 14-17% |
| Acceptable | 25-31% | 18-25% |
| Obese | 32%+ | 25%+ |
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Body Shapes
Pear
People with a Pear Body Shape have hips wider than their shoulders because their bodies store fat there and on the thighs. Pear shaped bodies carry their extra weight below the waistline, and do not seem to have as high a risk of developing health problems like diabetes, heart disease, stroke, high blood pressure...that people with an Apple Body Shape have.
Pear shaped people usually lose fat in the upper body, so their overall shape doesn't change much when they lose weight.
With time, as insulin resistance worsens, people who store fat below the belt will start accumulating it above the belt too and they will start experiencing all of the more immediate health threatening problems their apple shaped friends likely experience right now.
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Apple
The apple body shape (body fat is stored around the middle - i.e. abdomen, chest and surround internal organs, such as the heart) is linked with health problems such as coronary heart disease, diabetes, stroke, high blood pressure and gall bladder disease.
The shape is predominantly a male phenomenon; although women are more prone to develop an apple shape in mid-life, particularly after menopause. This is because the female hormones are present in much smaller amounts and so the shape tends to become more 'male'.
There is also evidence that abdominal fat develops when you are under long-term stress. The hormone cortisol is released during stress, and it seems that high levels of cortisol in the body tend to encourage central fat to accumulate. Researchers at Yale University studied 60 women and found that the more stress they were under, the more fat they stored around their stomach.
In other words, the people most likely to develop an apple body shape are stressed men of any age, and older stressed women.
The apple shaped body effect can be minimized with a sensible diet, regular exercise and stress-reduction techniques.
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