“I’d like to talk about being obese versus being overweight. One way to figure it out is to calculate your BMI. BMI (or body mass index) is the number that is calculated by dividing your weight in kilograms, by your height in meters squared. There are charts online that you can look up and figure out what your BMI is.”
“A healthy BMI is anywhere between 18 and 25. A BMI between 25 and 30 is considered to be overweight. Anything over 30 is considered obese. A BMI of 40 or greater is considered morbidly obese. As your weight increases, and as your BMI gets higher you have a much higher risk of developing other illnesses that are associated with being overweight or obese, such as high blood pressure, diabetes, hypertension or even cancer.”
“BMI is not perfect. For example, somebody like Arnold Schwarzenegger would have a BMI that would put him in the obese category because he has so much muscle mass. Conversely, an older woman with no muscle mass, who may not appear to be obese may actually in fact be obese because, for her height, her weight is too high. Those are the differences between being overweight and being obese.”