By Avi Aranb
Health and nutrition of children are one of the most important and challenging matters for every parent. When the kids are in growing age, it becomes essential to keep a check whether they are maintaining the proper or the required weight and height ratio.
During these years, height, and weight changes rapidly as kids grow and thus finding out whether your kid falls under right healthy weight range or not becomes difficult. Hence, you as a parent need to find what is BMI for kids.
What is Body Mass Index or BMI?
BMI is a measurement used to measure fat in the body. It helps you know whether your kid is at risk of developing health issues occurring due to overweight or underweight. BMI is be calculated based on the current height and weight of your child. Although, it doesn’t give you a measure of your total body fat, only the measure of fat present in the body. BMI is one of the best alternative means to find body fat because it is inexpensive and easy to calculate.
How is BMI calculated in kids?
BMI can indicate health issues that your kid might face in future due to being overweight or underweight. You can calculate the BMI and detect health risks in children right from the kids of age two. The basic calculation of BMI for kids is the same as for adults. The only difference is that for kids, you consider some additional factors while calculating BMI like gender and age. You can contact your health care provider regarding ways to find out your kid’s BMI or easiest way is many online BMI calculator makes it quick and easy to calculate it by feeding in few details required to calculate the BMI of your child.
Just like adults, BMI categorizes kids as underweight, healthy weight and overweight based on the weight.
Why is it essential to find BMI of kids?
With an increasingly growing rate of health issues occurring due to overweight or underweight like obesity, blood pressure problems, etc. people are becoming aware of maintaining a healthy weight. Not just adults but these issues generally start at a young age due to unhealthy eating habits or not getting proper nutrition. Hence you must consult your doctor regularly to keep a check on your child’s growth and development rather than waiting for a disease to knock your door.
Today many schools conduct programs to calculate BMI of students and the report is sent to their respective parents so that they are aware of their kid’s health status and take measures to maintain the healthy weight. If as a parent you have further issues like how to manage the healthy weight and what all should be the diet of your kid, as he/she gets the required nutrition, you can take the BMI report and consult a paediatrician.
As a parent, you must keep in mind that BMI is just one of the factors that give you an idea about your child’s growth and development based primarily on height and weight, and additional aspects like age and gender. But other factors need to be considered as well to get an accurate picture like an assessment of diet, physical activities, health, etc.
