Determining Body Mass Index

What is body mass index?
Determining how much your adolescent should weigh is not a simple matter of looking at an insurance height-weight chart, but includes considering the amount of bone, muscle, and fat in his/her body's composition. The amount of fat is the critical measurement.

A good indicator of how much fat your adolescent carries is the Body Mass Index (BMI). Although it is not a perfect measure, it gives a fairly accurate assessment of how much of your adolescent's body is composed of fat.

• Take your adolescent's weight in pounds and divide by 2.2 to determine his/her weight in kilograms. This is the "weight number."

• Next, convert your adolescent's height in inches into height in centimeters by multiplying the number of inches by 2.54.
  
  
  • Divide your adolescent's height in centimeters by 100 (there are 100 centimeters per meter).
    
    
  • Next, square your adolescent's height in meters by multiplying the sum by itself. This number is the "height number."
    
    
• Now, divide your adolescent's weight number by your adolescent's height number.