Question

3. What is the BMI? How is it used? What are the pros and cons of the BMI? Discuss the use of body composition and fat distribution in contrast to BMI, how is this useful clinically? Discuss the term thin fat and healthy overweight people. How might one work with individuals where this may be true? What other assessment tools are important to utilize? How could you use this information in assessing your own health? Explain why" t isn't everything" statement is true.

Answer 1

Bmi is basically the measurement of body fat by taking weight and height of a person as inputs.

Now a days there are many online applications where just by entering weight and height one can calculate his or her bmi.

Since bmi measures the fat,it can be used to record a data for a population to have awareness about various health risks due to obesity. If the range is below 18.5 the person will be classified as underweight. From 18.5 to 25, it's normal range and from 25 to 30 its overweight. It can be used as a screening tool. The unit of BMI is kg per meter square.

BMI has the advantage of easy calculation of body fat and getting a rough approximate data about the rate of obesity for a population.

But sometimes the data is not accurate at individual level. May be the person in not that much fat but his or her BMI is high due to high bone density, so the data may be misinterpreted. Also there may be some case where a person is actually fat but BMI is less due to the the uneven distribution of body fat. So BMI can't be a reliable method.

Body composition not only includes fats but it also includes minerals, body water, protein,bone. Body composition analysis is more accurate than BMI. Since it includes measurement of body fat percentage, Fat mass and muscle mass.

Body fat distribution can be determined by observing the intra abdominal fat. There are various method to do it. One method is to measure the circumference of waist. If men have waist more than 40 inches and women have waist more than 35 inches they will be considered to have obesity and may face various cardio health risks.