How Much Should You Weigh?

What Is Your Body Mass Index?

One of every two Americans is overweight, and one in five is obese — defined as being 20 percent or more above the normal weight for their height. Obesity is defined as an excess of body fat. Obesity is increasing in the U.S. at all ages. Being obese is more than a cosmetic problem: It increases the risk of cardiovascular health by promoting other risk factors such as high triglycerides, low HDL, high blood pressure and diabetes. Also, if heart disease is already present, it's further aggravated by excess pounds.

There are various ways of determining whether you are obese — none of which is perfect. One of the easiest is to compare your weight with the recommended weights on the table from the federal government's "Dietary Guidelines for Americans." But no height-weight table can take into account individual variations in proportions of fat and lean tissue (since muscle weighs more than fat) or the distribution of fat in the body. For instance, a person with a great deal of muscle may be overweight according to the table but have a very low proportion of body fat and thus not be obese nor have an increased risk of heart disease. A newer method is to calculate your body mass index or BMI.

Where your body's weight is distributed also has an important bearing on your risk of cardiovascular disease. In some obese people, most of the excess fat is deposited in the abdomen — they are called "apple-shaped" — while it settles around the hips and thighs in "pear-shaped" folks. Apple-shaped people (more commonly men) have a higher risk of heart disease than do those shaped like a pear (more commonly women). One possible reason: While other fat cells empty their fat content directly into the general blood circulation, the contents of abdominal fat cells go directly to the liver before entering the bloodstream. Abdominal obesity is associated with a resistance to insulin; in an effort to compensate for this resistance, the pancreas secretes excessive amounts of insulin. The resulting high blood levels of insulin set up a complex chain of reactions that eventually leads to hypertension, elevated triglycerides, low HDL levels and accelerated atherosclerosis; diabetes and coronary heart disease may follow.

One way to estimate your risk is to divide your waist circumference by your hip measurement. A ratio less than 0.80 is desirable for women, and a ratio less than 1.0 is desirable for men.

One method of determining whether you are overweight is a height-weight chart. These charts are falling out of favor because doctors disagree over which numbers are the best. These tables do not distinguish muscle from fat. However, they can be useful as a general guideline. A preferred method is to determine your body mass index or BMI, which helps estimate your level of body fat. A BMI of 25 to 29.9 is considered overweight; one 30 or above is considered obese.

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