There are charts which tell you about what should be your ideal weight if your height is this, this is actually the BMI, the BMI is the measurement which is calculated by dividing the weight and the height. It is this simple to calculate the BMI, even there are calculators online which take into account some other factors such as your gender to calculate the BMI but you can yourself calculate it. It certainly is not a new thing but people have been defining the ideal weight for 200 years now.
What is the range of the healthy BMI?
Many doctors do not take into account the age or the gender to calculate the BMI. But they believe on the common range of the BMI which is given for everyone. According to this range if your BMI fall in the 18.5 to 25 then you are a normal healthy person but the person who has the BMI ranging between 25 to 30 is overweighted and then the people having the BMI of above 30 are considered fat. The people who have the BMI below 18.5 are considered underweight. Although in some health conditions especially for the children who are growing or for the pregnant women who needs to put on certain amount of the weight for the baby to be healthy, the BMI does not work ideally but in normal conditions, it is the right measure.
If the BMI is not the ideal measure, then why it is useful?
In certain health problems where the patient needs to maintain a certain weight with respect to his height then the BMI scale makes it easy for the doctors to know how much the patient needs to lose to fall in the healthy range. These health conditions commonly include the diabetes, cholesterol, hypertension, and some kind of the cancers as well. A study was conducted in which it was found out that every year around 365000 people die due to being obese and having high BMIs. These people are commonly attacked by the above-mentioned disease due to the reason that their BMI is not normal.
Are there any conditions in which BMI is not useful?
You should know that the BMI is just the information as your height and weight is. It the input and therefore, it does not define the health of the person and certainly does not take in to account the other aspects which could hold significant value behind the reasons of gaining or loosing the weight. Not only this, but having the higher BMI does not mean that you have been diagnosed with some disease but it is just the indication that you might be suffering from any kind of disease due to abnormal BMI scale range.