Kate Barker

Are You Obese?

With all this talk in the media of obesity being on the rise maybe it's time we all took a moment to look at ourselves. Read this article and learn how to calculate which category you fall into, underweight, healthy or overweight. You may realise it's time to do something about that expanding waistband or, on the other hand, you may be pleasantly surprised.

If you are one of those people that are fooling themselves into thinking that obese people are only seen on Jerry Springer then think again. Obesity is a lot more common than you might think and it brings with it a lot of health problems such as heart problems, diabetes, liver problems and poor digestion.

By assessing your BMI (Basic Metabolic Index) and your waist to hip ratio, you can detemine whether you weight is normal, if you are overweight or even obese.

BMI

To work out your BMI you need to divide your weight in kg by your height in meters squared. For example if you are 1.65 m tall and weigh 85 kg, then you would use the following formula to calculate your BMI: weight / height squared = 85/1.65 x1.65 = 85/2.72 = 31,25

So if you weigh 85 kg and are 1.65 m tall, your BMI = 31,25.

So what does this mean?

If your BMI is lower than 18 then you are underweight and may also be experiencing problems such as anorexia, bulimia or an eating disorder.

If your BMI is between 18 and 25 then your weight is normal and you don’t need to go on drastic diets, but you should try and maintain your weight at this level to prevent weight gain.

If your BMI is between 25 and 30 you are overweight and need to try and remedy the situation.

If your BMI is greater than 30 then you are obese and need to immediately do something to reduce your weight.

Waist to hip ratio

Another simple tool for determining if you are overweight is to measure your waist and your hip circumferences and then compare the two measurements to each other by dividing the waist measurement by the hip measurement.

For example, if your waist measurement is 110 cm and your hip measurement is 120 cm, then you will have a waist-to-hip ratio of 110/120 = 0.92. For men a waist-to-hip ratio exceeding 1.0 indicates obesity.

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