How To Tell If You're Overweight?

(January 11, 2011)

Am I Overweight For My Height?

When a child progresses from childhood to adolescence, he/she undergoes a lot of physical changes. These physical changes can be attributed to puberty, which causes a spike in the level of sex hormones. During this phase, it is normal for the child to experience sudden increase in height or weight. Often, these drastic and abrupt spurts in weight or height due to puberty leave the person feeling apprehensive about their own body. While weight and height gain is normal during puberty, two people of same age and height might not have the same weight.

Further, feeling fat or considerably thin is not limited to adolescents. Anyone, at any point in their lives, may begin to question their body weight. Different lifestyles and eating habit affect people differently, and so often, the question that arises in the minds of many people is am I overweight for my height? So how do you know if you’re overweight? The only right way to know whether or not you are overweight is by measuring your body mass index, or BMI. Body Mass Index Chart or bmi chart is typically used by professionals to give you a quick indication of your body weight status.

How to tell if you’re overweight?

If you don’t know how to tell if you’re overweight, you’re not the only one. However, the only right way to determine whether or not you are overweight is to measure your BMI. A person’s BMI is a formula based number that takes into account your height and weight, and provides you with the amount of fat you have in your body. Once you know your BMI, you need to figure out what that number means. Essentially, the BMI is plotted on a graph of percentile lines. What this does is compare your BMI with that of other people of same age and gender. Depending on your height, age and gender, you are required to be of a certain weight, and this is indicated by the BMI. If your BMI is above the normal range for you age and gender, you’re overweight. Similarly, if it is less than that, you are underweight. Also, if your BMI is considerably over the normal range, you are obese.

Thus, your BMI is the only way you can genuinely determine whether or not you are overweight. There are many BMI calculators available online. If you’re still confused about how to tell if you’re overweight, you should speak with a doctor or nutritionist who can better explain to you the concept of BMI.