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Is BMI an accurate measure of health?
BMI is a fast, useful population screen but a blunt individual tool — it cannot tell muscle from fat or show where fat sits, so read it alongside other signals.
BMI is simply your weight divided by the square of your height, sorted into bands (under 18.5 underweight, 18.5–24.9 healthy, 25–29.9 overweight, 30+ obese). As a population screen it is genuinely useful and correlates with health risk across large groups.
As an individual verdict it is blunt. It cannot distinguish muscle from fat, so a very muscular person can read "overweight" while carrying little fat, and it says nothing about where fat is stored — visceral fat around the organs matters more than the same weight on the hips. Two people with identical BMI can have quite different health profiles.
The sensible use is as one signal among several: pair it with waist circumference, body-fat estimate, bloodwork and how you actually feel and move. A number on a website is a starting point for a conversation, not a diagnosis.
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General information, not medical advice. Figures are mainstream reference values; individual needs vary.
