BMI is a better indicator of body weight than the criteria of Hollywood

If you are a lady and you look at most of the famous female actors, singers, top models and the like, you will inevitably think that you are soooooo fat, that you must immediately start a diet. If you are a guy and you look at most of the famous male actors, singers, models and the like, you will inevitably think that you are soooooo thin and have no muscles at all, that you must immediately rush to the gym and start a weight gain program.

Well, in the second case (gaining some muscle), it will not do you any harm if you exercise a little but in the cases of starting a weight correction program, you'd better think a little first if you really need to lose or gain weight. Chances are that your body is just right in size and structure but fashion dictators make you think that you disparately need to improve it.

The Ideal Proportions

Striving to achieve perfection is admirable but chasing an obsession isn't. While there are really people who are obese or considerably underweight, the Hollywood criteria for too fat or too thin are hardly the right ones. On the contrary, many pin-thin girls, who are proud to be that skinny, are classified as considerably underweight according to medical criteria. Weighting 45 kgs at 1.74 m height is a good skeleton weight but for a human being this is way too thin. On the contrary, if you are a male and your weight is 120 kgs, while your height is 1.80 m, you are overweight because even the most robust muscles can't weight that much.

The above examples are arbitrary and there are more precise methodologies for calculating one's ideal weight. However, have in mind that various methodologies use different factors to estimate the ideal weight and as a result of this figures vary. Basically the factors that are taken into consideration are gender, age, height, weight, frame.

Gender is an important factor because all being equal, men with the same height are heavier than women, though some of the metrics, BMI for example, do not differentiate based on gender. The influence of age is similar – the older you get, the heavier your bones become and you start weighing more, even if your body fat is decreasing. It is obvious what height and weight measure, so they will not be discussed. The last factor is frame and it is related to your body structure – you might have light and gender bones or your bones might be more robust and heavy and as a result you will weigh more.

These factors are related to each other in many ways and because of this very often you will see your ideal weight not as an exact figure but as a range. For instance, for a female 1.74 m tall the healthy weight is between 57 and 76 kgs. The ideal weight can be narrowed from 64 to 69 kgs, so if you are somewhere in this range, you can be happy with your weight.

Another methodology for estimating body fat is the Body Mass Index (BMI). It takes into account height and weight only and based on them estimates if you have excessive fat or not. BMI classifies weight as underweight, normal, overweight, obese, or extremely obese. BMI is the same for both genders and applies to adults only.

There are other methodologies as well – for instance a popular one is that the ideal weight for ladies is the height – 110 kgs. I.e. if you are 1.70 m high, then 60 kgs is the best weight for you.

Does Your Body Suit You?

There is no doubt that scientific metrics are important but probably the most important criteria is if your body suits you. If you are too weak to perform even normal daily routines, than it is no use that you don't have a pound of fat on you. On the contrary, if you are a couple of pounds above the ideal weight for your height but you have a lot of muscles and lead an active way of life, this is also normal, especially having in mind the fact that muscles are heavier than fat. So, don't become a slave of fashion and think wisely about your body!