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BMI as a function of weight associated with height isn’t the sole factor in determining a healthy weight, explains Dr. Singh. “There are two other measurements, along with metabolic markers like blood pressure, cholesterol and diabetes, that help determine if you’re at a healthy weight.”
The first is body composition (or body fat percentage), which is the amount of lean body mass (muscle, water, tissue and bone) to fat mass. Men who lift weights and carry a lot of muscle may have a BMI of 35 or 40 and still be at a healthy weight, explains Dr. Singh.
Here are the heathy body fat ranges by age, according to data published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.
However, if you’re truly looking for an accurate way to measure overall health, weight distribution is more important than body fat percentage, according to Fatima Cody Stanford, M.D., an obesity medicine physician-scientist at Harvard Medical School. “Your health risk is greater when you carry fat around your midsection.”
You can get a good idea of weight distribution by measuring waist circumference (at the belly button). The circumference of one’s waist is an indicator of visceral fat around the midsection, and can help determine a person’s risk for poor health outcomes, even if their BMI is considered normal, explains Dr. Stanford.
Men with a waist circumference greater than 40 inches carry the highest risk for type 2 diabetes, hypertension and cardiovascular disease. Because Asian men experience higher rates of metabolic syndrome at a lower weight than other ethnicities, the International Diabetes Association sets the obesity cut-off for this group at measurements greater than 35.4 inches.
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