Why should you care about weight?

• Want to look and feel better

• Health concerns of having excess weight

  • Overweight or obesity

  • Blood pressure

  • Sleep apnea

  • Type 2 diabetes

  • Heart diseases

  • Chronic diseases

• Health concerns of  being underweight

• Impacts ability to carry out daily goals

• Impacts ability to participate in sports/exercise/hobbies

• Want to sleep better

 

Reaching and maintaining a healthy weight is important for overall health and can help you prevent and control many diseases and conditions. That is why maintaining a healthy weight is so important. It helps you lower your risk for developing these problems, helps you feel good about yourself, and gives you more energy to enjoy life. 

 

Assess if your body fat puts you at increased health risk

Body fat and whether it puts you at higher health risk can be estimated using:

• Body mass index (BMI) and/or

• Waist circumference

 

Do you know your weight?

If you do not have easy access to a weighing scale, depending on where you live, you can find place where you can weight yourself for free or minimal cost. For example, you could weigh yourself at a doctor’s office, drug store or pharmacy, some supermarket, railway stations, gyms, or a friend who may have a scale.

 

If you cannot find a scale to weigh yourself, you can find a measure tape and get your waist circumference instead of trying to calculate BMI from weight and height. Waist circumference is as good or better measure in relation to risk of many diseases.

 

• Body Mass Index (BMI)

BMI is a useful measure to see whether you are normal weight, overweight, obese or underweight. It is calculated from your height and weight. BMI is an estimate of body fat and can be related to your risk for diseases that can occur with more body fat. The higher your BMI beyond normal, the higher may be your risk for certain diseases such as heart disease, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, gallstones, breathing problems, and certain cancers.

 

Although BMI can be used for most men and women, it does have some limits:

• It may overestimate body fat in athletes and others with a muscular build.

• It may underestimate body fat in older persons and others who have lost muscle.

 

Use the BMI Calculator  to estimate your body fat.

Before you start, you need to know your height, and recent weight.  If you don’t have your recent weight, find a way to weigh yourself, or assess your body fat using waist circumference instead.

 

If you know your adult height, you do not need to measure it again. If you need to measure your height, stand bare feet and straight against the wall, ask someone to hold a hard cover book on your head horizontally at a right angle to the wall and mark the point denoting the top of the head.

 

• Waist Circumference

  • Abdominal obesity is a risk factor for diabetes, hypertension, and heart disease. 

  • Measuring waist circumference helps screen for possible health risks that come with overweight and obesity.

  • To correctly measure your waist, stand and place a tape measure around your middle at the umbilicus, or just above your hipbones. Measure your waist just after you breathe out normally.

  • If most of your fat is around your waist rather than at your hips, it increases your risk for heart disease and type 2 diabetes, especially if the waist size is more than 35 inches for women or more than 40 inches for men.