Health and Nutrition: How does Body Mass Index affects your well-being?

After you are able to learn whether you have the right weight for your age and height, whether you are normal, obese or underweight, you will then have to analyze yourself and the environment that you are in.

Your self-assessment should cover your past weight loss efforts, your attitude towards the campaign, how people affect your motivation, how willing you are to achieve your goal and so forth. If you are able to accomplish this honestly, weight loss is a step away.

There are online weight loss predictor tool that includes computing your BMI and have a set off questionnaires for you to answer. You will only have to sit and honestly answer the question. After it, you will be sent a report on your assessment. While others may require you to pay, there are also free reports and the full assessment report can be bought at very affordable price.

The BMI or the body mass index has been used medically to quantify and identify weight problems. This is calculated by individual's body weight divided by the square of his height. The formulas universally used in medicine produce a unit of measure of kg/m2.

Basically, this is a useful tool to estimate a healthy body weight based on how tall a person is. Another option is to determine the BMI based on the BMI chart (see figure at the right), which displays BMI as a function of weight (horizontal axis) and height (vertical axis) using contour lines for different values of BMI or colors for different BMI categories.

A frequent use of the BMI is to assess how much an individual's body weight departs from what is normal or desirable for a person of his or her height. The weight excess or deficiency may, in part, be accounted for by body fat (adipose tissue) although other factors such as muscularity also affect BMI significantly (see discussion below and overweight). The WHO (world health organization) regard a BMI of less than 18.5 as underweight and may indicate malnutrition, an eating disorder, or other health problems, while a BMI greater than 25 is considered overweight and above 30 is considered obese. These ranges of BMI values are valid only as statistical categories when applied to adults, and do not predict health. (src:wikipedia.com)

When you plan to manage your weight, there are a few things that you should consider. Below are some of the factors that you have to reflect on to make your weight loss program successful.

1. Physical condition. Before you try to lose weight, you should consider your health condition. A medical expert would help analyze your health. This is especially important if you have allergies. asthma or respiratory problems.

2. Personal motivation. How well are you motivated to shed those fats? Do you want to lose weight to enhance your health or you are just caught up in peer pressure? This will dictate how strong your motivation and commitment to lose weight.

3. Environmental influence. Do you stay at home or have hectic schedule in the office or at school? Time management is necessary to keep up with your weight loss program schedule.

4. Cost of losing weight. How much would it cost you to engage in the weight loss program? Would you need a maintenance of diet pills or enrol at the gym? Can you sustain the cost until the end of the program?

Of course, these are only a few to consider in establishing a health program. It varies depending on the individual situation and weight loss needs.