How to Calculate Your Corporal Mass

Corporal mass, or body mass index (BMI), is a classification system used to determine whether someone is within a healthy weight range. When considering your health, calculating BMI is more accurate than simply weighing yourself, since it takes height into consideration. Obviously, a healthy petite person weighs significantly less than a tall person with a similar body shape. BMI has one caveat, however; it does not take muscle into account and, since muscle weighs more than fat, a very muscular person may falsely classify as overweight. BMI = kg/m^2.

Things You'll Need

• Scale
• Tape measure
• Calculator

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Instructions

• 1

  Weigh yourself and record your weight in pounds. Multiply this number by 0.45 to convert it to kilograms.

• 2

  Measure your height in inches. Multiply this number by 0.025 to convert it to meters, then square the result.

• 3

  Divide your weight in kilograms by your squared height in meters to obtain your BMI. A BMI under 20 is underweight, 20 to 24.9 is normal weight, 25 to 29.9 is overweight, 30 to 40 is moderately obese and over 40 is severely obese.