New Way to Calculate healthy weight could Trump BMI

The most common way to calculate a healthy weight has been using the Body Mass Indicator for many years. The BMI adjusts its health weight range depending on height and gender, so a tall man would need to weigh more than a shorter woman before he was considered to be overweight.

But a professor of applied statistics in Nevada, George Fernandez believe he’s come up with a better and even simpler way of finding out how much they should weigh, saying that the BMI calculation doesn’t often stick in people’s minds.

He said: “We need a Maximum Weight Limit, or MWL, one number that we know we can’t go over, just like a speed limit.”

Fernandez’s way of calculating his MWL comes up with similar results to the BMI but can be figured out without doing any maths, using an online calculator or having to already know what your BMI is.

There a baseline height and weights for women and men, using the new system. For men the baseline is 5 feet 9 with a maximum of 175 pounds, while for women its 5 feet tall and a maximum of 125 pounds.

The professor believes that from such a starting point people can easily work out their maximum weight limit. A man should add 5 pounds for each inch taller he is over the baseline, while a woman must add 4.5. If you’re less than the baseline, you simply take away the same amount.

Fernandez’s believes his easy to work out formula could be of particular use to people in third world countries who don’t have access to the technology to work out what their weight should be. Of course, the whole system relies on you already knowing exactly how tall you are in feet and inches.

If you’re in a country that doesn’t use that system you could find yourself needing to go online to find out the conversion to centimetres which certainly defeats the point!

Fernandez said: “Now people can calculate their own Maximum Weight Limit, based on the BMI index, but without any calculators or charts. And, all they have to remember is that one number, 185 pounds for example, which is easier for most people than retaining a weight range, such as 155 to 185 pounds.”