BMI and Waist-Hip Ratio

BMI

BMI is a pretty good indicator of how you're going weight-wise. I know it doesn't take into consideration different peoples' level of fat or muscle that contributes to their weight, but I know I'm more fat than muscle, and I'm using my BMI as a secondary reference to see if I picked the right goal weight for my height. So for me, BMI fulfils its purpose.

I'm Australian and am a bit biased since I use the metric system (kg, cm, etc), but I think converting to kg and cm is much easier than working out 5'9" into just feet or just inches. BUT here are the ways to calculate BMI, using either metric or imperial measurements, courtesy of wikipedia:

Using this BMI you can then guage how 'normal' your weight is for someone of your height. Before I looked up 'BMI' on Wikipedia, I'd only really seen Underweight, Normal, Overweight and Obese. It's good to see in the chart below, Obese is divided into 3 classes.

With a height of 175cm (5'9") and weight of 104kg (229 pounds), I end up with a BMI of 33.8. I fall into Obese Class 1! All the more reason for me to get into shape, I think. My goal weight of 65kg (143 pounds) gives me a BMI of 21.2, falling into the Normal category.

As I mentioned before, BMI doesn't take fat/muscle distribution into account, so it's not really advisable for a person to follow the scheme religiously. It's handy just as a reference though.

Waist-Hip Ratio

Waist-hip ratio is considered a good indicator of health in a person. The optimal ratio for health and fertility is 0.7 for females and 0.9 for males. A high waist-hip ratio brings with it an increased risk of type 2 diabetes and heart problems. As far as female body shapes go, apples are at most risk of a high waist-hip ratio, whereas hourglass and pear shapes are fairly lucky (they tend not to carry as much weight around their middle, putting less strain on their heart and such). Leg and butt weight isn't so bad on the body as torso weight.

My waist-hip ratio is at about 0.85 so It's not ideal, but it's not terrible. We'll see how my weight loss will affect my ratio.