Body mass index (BMI) is a crucial measurement wont to determine whether your child is overweight, underweight, or at a perfect weight for his or her age. So important is BMI in monitoring your child’s health that the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force currently recommends the routine tracking of BMI altogether children over the age of two.1

Child vs. Adult BMI Calculations

Unlike adults for whom a BMI of 25 to 30 is taken into account overweight and a BMI is assessed as obese, children require a special standard of evaluation as long as their bodies change so rapidly.

The calculation starts with a typical BMI supported your child’s height and weight. BMI doesn’t measure body fat but rather the quantity of tissue (including muscle, fat, and bone) in your child’s body. the worth is then wont to determine where your child falls, percentage-wise, among children of an equivalent sex and age bracket .1

That percentile value are going to be wont to determine your child’s weight category (underweight, normal, overweight, obese).

Getting the proper Measurements

To get an accurate BMI calculation, you’ll got to make sure the accurate height and weight measurements each and each time. To do so:

• Remove your child’s shoes, outer clothing, and hair ornaments.
• Get an accurate height by having the kid stand together with his or her feet together on an uncarpeted floor with the top , shoulders, back, buttocks, and heels placed against a flat wall surface. make certain your child neither slouches nor lifts the heels.
• Use a digital scale placed on A level , uncarpeted floor. Have the kid place both feet on the middle of the size without moving. Avoid spring-loaded bathroom scales which will wear out over time.

Always attempt to use an equivalent tools for measurement and perform the measurements at an equivalent time of day (such as within the morning just before breakfast or within the afternoon right before dinner).

Calculating Your Child’s BMI

The standard formula to calculate BMI is weight ÷ (height x height) x 703. To calculate this with imperial (pounds and inches) measurements:

• Measure the child’s weight in pounds.
• Measure the child’s height in inches.
• Calculate the BMI by dividing the load by the peak squared and multiplying that total by 703.

The metric formula to calculate BMI is weight ÷ (height x height) x 10,000. To calculate this:

• Measure the child’s weight in kilograms (not grams). this might be expressed during a decimal value, like 12.7 kilograms.
• Measure the child’s height in centimeters (not meters). this is able to be expressed, for instance , as 105 centimeters and not 1.05 meters.
• Calculate the BMI by dividing the load by the peak squared and multiplying that total by 10,000.

BMI Percentiles for youngsters

The BMI percentile allows us to categorize your child’s BMI based where he or she falls as compared to other boys or girls of an equivalent age bracket . The arrangement was established in 1977 to categorize a child’s development supported weight-for-height percentiles.2

The value is expressed not as a percentage (such as 85%) but rather as a percentile (such because the 85th percentile of all children of that sex and age group). If your child is, say, within the 75th percentile, that might mean that he or she is above 75% of youngsters within the group.

In terms of weight, higher percentile values correspond to higher weight categories, while lower percentile values correspond to lower weight categories. Your child’s BMI percentile are often determined by plotting the BMI on a BMI chart.

Weight Categories for youngsters

Once you’ve got established your child’s BMI and percentile, you’ll then see exactly where he or she falls within the expected range.

The BMI-for-age weight categories3 were supported recommendations from an expert committee organized by the American Medical Association (AMA), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and therefore the Human Resources Services Administration (HRSA).

The weight categories for youngsters are defined as follows:

• Underweight: BMI of but the 5th percentile
• Normal weight: BMI from the 5th percentile to below the 85th percentile
• Overweight: BMI above the 85th percentile to below the 95th percentile
• Obese: BMI greater than or adequate to the 95th percentile