How healthy is your weight?

Body mass index and body composition… just how healthy are you?

Step back from the weighing scales! If you are popping on and off and using this as a guide you are not gaining the true picture of just how healthy you are. You really need to turn to some measurements of your healthy weight to fat / muscle ratio. Body mass index, or BMI, and body composition are ways to determine whether you’re at a healthy weight or an unhealthy weight. Both types of measurements have their benefits and drawbacks, and how you use them to measure your fitness progress depends on your starting point and goals.

Lean mass, skinny-fat and obesity… what’s your body composition?

Firstly what’s a Body Mass Index (BMI)? This provides insight into whether you’re likely to be at a healthy body weight, based on your weight and height. On the other hand, Body Composition doesn’t directly look at your body weight, rather it’s a measure of how much of your weight comes from lean mass, which includes muscle, bone, connective tissue and water, and how much comes from fat. You could calculate this using the old method of body calipers but here at ESPH we use a Tanita machine, a hand held devise which gives accurate and fast results. This uses the latest advanced bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA) technology to provide a true indicator of your inner health and, when monitored over time, can show the impact of any fitness regime or weight loss programme. For example, in the Body Composition analysis If you weigh 75 Kilograms, and 60 Kilograms of that is lean mass, you have a body composition that’s 20 percent body fat.

Body mass index (BMI) - how useful is it?

BMI is often used as a measure of obesity because it’s easy to figure out; you don’t need expensive equipment, just a scale and a tape measure to get your weight and height. It’s also a good measure of whether you’re at a healthy weight for the average person. However, BMI isn’t the best measure for everyone. If you’re “skinny fat” — meaning you have a healthy body weight but a higher than healthy body fat, you may well be seen as healthy according to BMI, but still have a higher risk of developing an obesity related illness.

BMI becomes less useful as you age. Most people lose muscle mass and gain fat as they get older, so you have a higher risk of being “skinny fat” at a healthy BMI the older you get. Conversely, BMI isn’t always a good fit for healthy and muscular people; your BMI might be considered overweight or obese, even though you have low fat levels.

Body composition - a gold standard in healthy weight analysis

Measuring body composition offers much more insight into your health and disease risk than BMI. Because it measures how much of your weight comes from lean mass and how much comes from fat, you’ll get insight into your risk of obesity related illness, no matter what your actual weight is on the scale. I would recommend using the Body Composition Test rather than Body Mass Index… and the weighing scales are optional!

Body composition testing is an integral part of our Fitness Fundamentals assessment, which is offered to our members FREE at up to 4 check-ins throughout the year.