Are you Obese or Overweight?

The term "obesity" is used for someone who is very overweight. Obesity specifically means an excess amount of body fat. In mediacal terms "Overweight" means an excess amount of body weight that includes muscle, bone, fat and water.

Obese people are definately overweight but vise versa is not true. As mentioned above overweight is the excess amount of body weight so people such as bodybuilders, atheletes or swimmers etc. can be overweight without being obese.

Parameters to measure Obesity :

Obesity is meausred on total percentage of body fats. Men with more than 25% body fats and women with more than 30% body fats are considered as obese.

We can not measure exact amount of a person's body fat easily, for that yoou need some special methods and quipments. There is one more method which have been used for decades is weight-for-height tables. But such tables varies on weight factor. In every tables you will find different measures and parameters. Like it is mentioned before even a muscular person may appear obese according to the table because these tables do not distinguish between excess fat and muscule.

Body Mass Index :

In recent years medical science is using body mass index (BMI) to measure overweight and obesity.

BMI is calculated by a mathematical formula based on person's weight and height.

BMI = weight in Kg's/Height in meters^2

There are different BMI groups which indicates person's health condition whether he is healthy, overweight or obese.

Following is the BMI table to find out what is one's BMI.

From the above table you can find out what is your BMI. Following is the table for health conditions as per the BMI. From the given table you can actually find out in which category you fall.

So in which category you fit in...???

According to the medical science your BMI should be somewhere between 19 to 30.

Some facts for women.

Women with a BMI below 21 - Ideal for preventing heart disease

Women with a BMI 21-25 - Heart attackChances increase by 30%

Women with a BMI 25-29 - Heart attackChances increase by 80%

Women with a BMI 26 & higher - Weight related risk of cancer begins