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BMI: What Is It and How Do You Measure It?

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Body mass index, or BMI, is determined by taking your weight in kilograms and dividing it by your square height in meters. While it doesn’t measure the amount of body fat you have directly, it can correlate to the amount of fat you have in your body on average. Figuring out your BMI is a simple and inexpensive way to determine if you are where you should be overall in terms of your weight.

A high BMI often means you have a lot of body fat. While this is a good starting point, you would need to be evaluated further by your healthcare provider to determine if you really are overweight and need to do something about it to get your health under control. Your provider will look at your diet, your family history, skinfold thickness, level of physical activity and various other types of screenings to gauge just how bad your BMI is.

Unfortunately, you cannot go off your BMI alone. If you have a lot of muscle for example, your BMI might read higher than normal when you use the height and weight formula. This can make it seem like your BMI is too high when in fact you might be perfectly normal and within a healthy range. On average, you want your BMI to be somewhere between 18.5 and 24.9. Anything higher or lower than that could be consider underweight or overweight. BMIs of 30 or above are considered obese.

As helpful as it is to know your BMI, many people don’t have time to mess around with trying to calculate the numbers on their own. They need something that is going to do the job for them to help them monitor where they are and whether there have been any changes in overall BMI. Thankfully, there are a number of different products on the market today that can help you out.

One of which is a scale. There are scales that track your body fat, weight, bone density and more. You can program them for multiple users so everyone can benefit from the scale. They also tell you whether there have been any changes or not to help you track progress. These scales are a great addition to any home and can help you stay on track toward your weight loss goals and keep you healthy.

Shop for scales with BMI tracking at Cartageous.com and check to see if your health is on track!

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