Why is body mass index (BMI) the most widely used method to ...

[itsmyluck]

Why is body mass index (BMI) the most widely used method to determine whether people are overweight or obese?

Question 2

Assume John is an 18-year-old male who weighs 180 pounds and has 25 percent body fat. What is the recommended body weight at 15 percent body fat for John? List the steps that you use in your computation.

[mirabriestensky]

Answer to Question 1

Because of its simplicity and measurement consistency across populations, BMI is the most widely used method to determine overweight and obesity. Due to the various limitations of previously mentioned body composition techniques-including cost, availability to the general population, lack of consistency among technicians and laboratories, inconsistent results between techniques, and standard error of measurement of the procedures-BMI is used almost exclusively to determine health risks and mortality rates associated with excessive body weight.

Answer to Question 2

The recommended body weight for John at 15 body fat is 158.8 lbs. Following are steps:
Determine the pounds of body weight that are fat (FW) by multiplying his body weight (BW) by the current percent fat (F) expressed in decimal form (FW = BW  F). 180  0.25 = 45 lbs.
Determine lean body mass (LBM) by subtracting the weight in fat from the total body weight (LBM = BW - FW). (Anything that is not fat must be part of the lean component.) 180 - 45 = 135 lbs.
Desired body fat percentage (DFP) = 15
Compute recommended body weight (RBW) according to the formula RBW = LBM / (1.0 - DFP). 135 / (1.0 - 0.15 ) = 158.8 lbs.

[itsmyluck]

Great answer, keep it coming

[mjenn52]

Thanks for the timely response, appreciate it