Body Mass Index BMI 19-20-21 or Vital stattistics 36-24-36 or Zero figure?

BMI stands for Body Mass Index. Everyone has a different BMI. To find out what yours is, all you need to know are your height and weight. Until you're around age 21, your age and gender need to be factored into your BMI to account for the different speeds at which boys and girls develop. Your BMI doesn't tell you everything you need to know about your health, but it's a quick way to tell whether or not you might be underweight or overweight.

Hour glass figures having 36-24-36 (bust-waist-hips) proportionate were and are popular among females to look SEXY. Advertisement and marketing companies as well as fashion industry do motivate females to go for unrealistic body image. But more important is your BMI then the vital statistics for healthy body. It is better that parents of preteen daughters make the teenage daughter understand the importance of body development during puberty through exercise and diet and postures. Once the puberty /teenage is over, it will be difficult to change the bone structure, height and reproductive organs perfect growth.

One of the biggest questions boys and girls have as they grow and develop during PUBERTY and TEENAGE, is whether they're the right weight. One place to start is by learning about body mass index, or BMI, a calculation that estimates how much body fat a person has proportionate to his or her weight and height. BMI is used as a screening tool to identify possible weight problems for teenagers.

1. Before calculating BMI, obtain accurate height (Meters) and weight (Kilograms) measurements.
2. The BMI number is calculated using standard formulas.

Kilograms and meters (or centimetres/100) Formula: weight (kg) / [height (m)]2
As an example if the height is 150 centi meters and weight is 50 kgs.
Then 150 centi meters is 150/100= 1.5 meters
50 kgs divided by 1.5 meters X 1.5 meters = 50 / 2.25
= 22.22 BMI kg per meter square

One can review the calculated BMI-for-age percentile and results of similar teenagers gender wise and community wise. The BMI-for-age percentile is used to interpret the BMI number because BMI is both age-and gender-specific for children and teens. These criteria are different from those used to interpret BMI for adults — which do not take into account age or gender.

Age and gender are considered for preteens and teens for two reasons. The amount of body fat changes with growing age during puberty. Also the amount of body fat differs between girls and boys. Even BMI for INDIANS teenagers and AMERICAN TEENAGERS will be different. BMI may not correspond to the same degree of fatness in different populations due, in part, to different body proportions. The health risks associated with increasing BMI are continuous and the interpretation of BMI grading in relation to risk may differ for different populations.

Healthy weight ranges change with each month of age for each sex during puberty, growth spurt period. Healthy weight ranges change as height increases and it is different for every individual. Actual BMI can be perfectly calculated once the growth spurt is totally complete at around the age of 19.

BMI can help doctors identify people who are overweight and at risk of developing medical problems like high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and diabetes. Doctors can monitor that person's weight and make recommendations about healthy eating and exercise. BMI can also suggest the malnutrition during PUBERTY, and doctors can suggest remedies like intake of iron tablets or adequate food intake.

It's very common for teens to gain weight quickly — and see their BMI go up — during puberty. Those changes may be a normal part of development (for example, someone with a large frame or lots of muscle can have a high BMI.) Or, the changes can be a sign of future weight problems. Your doctor can help you figure out whether weight gain is a normal part of development or whether it's something to be concerned about. Too much body fat is a problem because it can lead to illnesses and other health problems. BMI, although not a perfect method for judging someone's weight, is often a good way to check on how a teenager is growing.

Classification BMI(kg/m2)

Underweight less than 18.50
Severe thinness less than 16.00
Moderate thinness 16.00 - 16.99
Mild thinness 17.00 - 18.49
Normal range 18.50 - 22.99
23.00 - 24.99
Overweight above 25.00
Pre-obese 25.00 - 29.99
Obese above 30.00
Obese class I 30.00 - 34.99
Obese class II 35.00 - 39.99
Obese class III above 40.00
Source: Adapted from WHO, 1995, WHO, 2000 and WHO 2004.
In recent years, there was a growing debate on whether there are possible needs for developing different BMI cut-off points for different ethnic groups due to the increasing evidence that the associations between BMI, percentage of body fat, and body fat distribution differ across populations and therefore, the health risks increase below the cut-off point of 25 kg/m2 that defines overweight in the current WHO classification.