# New measure of obesity - body adiposity index (BAI)

By Murray Bourne, 09 Mar 2011

Scientists have proposed a new method for determining body fat, called the Body Adiposity Index.

## Background

Obesity affects 500 million people world-wide (which is crazy when one billion people are starving, but we'll leave that issue for another time.)

There are several methods for measuring body fat (including hydrodensitometry, calipers, DEXA - Dual Energy X-ray Absorptiometry, infrared, MRI, and so on. See Body Fat Analyzing for more information.)

But is there an easy, low-tech way to measure whether somebody has a healthy amount of body fat, or is overweight?

For almost 200 years, the Body Mass Index (BMI) has been used to give a measure of body fat. The calculation for BMI is as follows.

BMI is useful in that you only need to know the person's height and weight.

The problem with the BMI is that it often fails as a measure of how much unhealthy fat you are carrying. There are broad ranges in the BMI for "healthy" and "obese" to allow for athletes (who tend to be muscular, and muscles are more dense than fat) and women (who tend to have more body fat). The BMI overestimates body fat in lean people.

Also, you need a reliable set of scales to use the BMI.

In short, we need a new way to measure obesity.

## The Body Adiposity Index (BAI)

Researcher Richard Bergman of the University of Southern California measured 1700 Mexican-Americans for their fat levels and has recently proposed a new index - Body Adiposity Index (BAI). The formula is as follows:

The "hip" measurement is "at the level of the maximum extension of the buttocks posteriorly in a horizontal plane" (not actually around the level of your belly button - which is usually a maximum - as reported by some news outlets).

Applying some basic index laws (fractional exponents), we can express this as:

Bergmean's team settled on this formula after cross-checking the subjects' body weight using Dual Energy X-ray Absorptiometry, mentioned earlier.

One advantage of the BAI is it doesn't depend on weight - just 2 simple length measurements.

More research needs to be done (to a wider range of ethnic groups for a start) before it will be considered a valid measure of body fat.

I developed a new online calculator where you can find your own BAI and compare it to your BMI.

Try it out and let me know what you think. Go to:

Comparison calculator: BMI - BAI

## Final note - is it really complex?

The reporter from Reuters appears to have been a math phobe. At one point the article said:

BAI is a complex ratio of hip circumference to height that can be calculated by doctors or nurses with a computer or calculator.

Complex? Really? It's rather sad when grade 8 index laws are considered "complex". And I imagine most people would use a calculator (or an online tool, or a chart) to calculate their BMI. I don't regard the BAI as all that more difficult in this respect.

### 73 Comments on “New measure of obesity - body adiposity index (BAI)”

1. gasstationwithoutpumps says:

Correction, the hip measurement is "at the level of the maximum extension of the buttocks posteriorly in a horizontal plane."

Although the measure was developed on a set of Mexican-Americans in LA, it was also tested on a set of African-Americans in Washington, DC. It provides pretty good predictions of %fat for most of the range, but at low and high values of %fat it over-estimates somewhat.
(Based on the Nature article itself)

2. Murray says:

@gswp: Thanks for the correction. My searches did not turn up this nugget (my "belly button" definition was based on one of the news reports).

I have amended the post.

3. Jon K. says:

I dunno about this. My BMI is well over 30, and my doctor would most surely call me obese. My hip measurement - "at the level of maximum extension of the buttocks to the posterior in a horizontal plane" - is about 20cm less than around my bellybutton, and it gives a BAI of less than 27. Doesn't make sense that I would be solidly in the obese range in one measurement and a tad over normal in another.

The BAI calculation implies that when Mexican-Americans or African-Americans gain weight, they gain in the hips, not in the belly like this (and many other) Americans of European or British descent.

To make a long story short - some people are apple-shaped, some are pear-shaped. BMI and BAI are both relatively worthless for actual bodyfat measurements....

4. Murray says:

@Jon: Yes, the jury is still out about the BAI. It is very early days with this new index and it may turn out to be quite useless for predicting health.

However, one of the failings of the BMI is it doesn't take into account how the fat is distributed, whereas the BAI does (to some extent).

I also find it strange they use the hip measurement rather than the maximum (near the belly button), but that's statistics for you!

5. piglet says:

According to the article in New Scientist, the index is roughly equal to your percentage body fat. My BMI on your calculator is 23.7 and my BAI is 30ish, which as a percentage body fat is acceptable according to the weight loss resources website.
http://www.weightlossresources.co.uk/body_weight/body_fat/percentage.htm
I suspect the "hip" measurement needs to be a measure of the widest part of your middle wherever that might be, to be useful.

6. Murray says:

Hi Piglet. I have re-written the calculator and I think it makes more sense now.

The "hip" measurement is used (and defined as per the article) presumably because it gave the best correlation with the % body fat. Intuitively (to me) that should be the widest part. But in my case, the "hip" measurement was greater than the "belly button" measurement anyway!

7. Leslie Lauw says:

1. BMI is Kg/m2 and not the other way round.
2. I suggest that a simpler (and more accurate) way to estimate your total body fat is to buy a body analyzer that uses Bioelectrical Impedance Analysis (eg Tanita and Omron brands). They are not expensive and will give an estimate of your visceral fat as well. Well worth the investment. :)Leslie Lauw

8. Murray says:

Thanks Leslie. The obvious gets missed in the rush...

9. Arun B. Khanal says:

No one really find this formula hard if one is familiar with his/her high school level mathematics. But of course you need a scientific calculator or you can use Excel. I'd be more than happy to present the calculations using both ways.
Let x = hip (in cm),
and y = height (in m)
a) USING SCIENTIFIC CALCULATOR: x/(y^1.5)-18=
b) USING EXCEL: At any Blank Cell of Excel type the following (but x and y must be in numbers)
=x/(y^1.5)-18
ILLUSTRATION
Suppose a person's hip (x) = 97 cm and height (y) = 1.6 m
a) Using Scientific Calculator, BAI = 29.928 (see below)
97/(1.6^1.5)-18 =
b) Using Excel: At any blank cell of Excel enter the
following, you will get the same value (29.928).
=97/(1.6^1.5)-18

c) Make an Excel Program yourself to measure several person's BAI.s for the comparison purpose.

Step-1: First inter the Headings in the First row
A1: Name B1: Hip (in cm) C1: Height (in m) D1: BAI

Step-2: Enter the values in the second row

Step-3: Enter the following program/formula at Cell D2
=B2/(C2^1.5)-18

Step-4: Copy the formula of D2 vertically below it,
you will see #DIV/0! (because you have not yet
entered the values of hip and height)
Step-5: Finally go on adding other person's name, hip, and height measurements, Excel will automatically give the BAI. And compare your BAI with others.

But I have a question with Murray: After knowing the BAI value, there should be a critical value so one will be aware whether one's BAI is high or low. What is the critical value?
For example, in the clinical thermometer, there is an arrow at the 37C or 98.6F so if one's body temperature cross the line one will be suffering from fever.

--Mr. Arun Bhadra Khanal, Kathmandu, Nepal

10. Bill says:

And there's that shiny thing in the powder room. That will tell you if your pants don't.

11. Murray says:

@ Arun: Thanks for your contribution.

The BAI Calculator page indicates cut-offs for the desired and unhealthy body fat percentages.

12. Eleanor blair says:

For women at least I suspect this hip measurement around the buttocks is likely to be the widest point, it's certainly how you take hip measurements for most clothing retailers anyway.

In my case the BAI comes out around 29.4% which I believe would be considered healthy for an adult woman. However my electrical impedance based scales put me at more like 36.5% which is considered overfat and by BMI I'm slightly overweight too, so in my case the BMI seems the more accurate predictor of excess adiposity.

13. Murray says:

@Eleanor: Thanks for the feedback, Eleanor. This BAI hasn't even been cross-checked with races other than Latin-Americans and African-Americans. I suspect they'll modify it once they do more thorough testing.

BTW, I've tweaked the calculator so that it accepts "age" as a variable.

14. Eleanor blair says:

Nb the calculator page is not yet available on the mobile site: which i keep getting redirected to! iPhones can generally display non-mobile pages fine, so this is more than a little irritating

15. Murray says:

@Eleanor: Hi again. Guilty as charged - I had to fix some javascript errors before I could put it up on the mobile site.

It's there now - please try it out and let me know how it works for you.

16. Eleanor Blair says:

I already tried the full version at my PC now - and the results were just as I calculated them myself 🙂

When on the iPod I'd rather have the choice of being able to use the full version, rather than being always redirected back to the mobile one. Most full web pages work fine on it.

I suspect that in fact there will always be outliers who do not fit the approximation, even if it does turn out to be a good fit to actual body fat percentage in white women.

17. Murray says:

Hi Eleanor. On the re-direct issue, I did have it set so that if you came from the mobile site to the full site, it would leave you there. But this caused problems with another feature so I had to disable it.

I have re-enabled the feature and will work on solving the other problem.

18. Jon says:

What the heck? I did the conversions correctly and it's telling me that I'm 27%.

I'm 5'10" and 171 lbs with little bodyfat on me. What the heck?!?

19. Nancy says:

Yes, my hips ARE that small. I don't think they look small at all; they are 36. they don't look small because that measurement has always matched my bust measurement, and my waist has always been around 9 - 11 inches smaller no matter how much I've weighed, which has been between 105 and 155 as an adult. I am 67 inches tall, but have an hourglass shape, so do not look skinny. I have small bones. I have to look for clothes that will fit this shape. Most don't -- they are made for women who are rectangular in shape. For some reason I keep getting this comment in red: Are your hips that small? To me, 36 inches is not all that small.

20. Murray says:

@Nancy: I suspect you entered your hip measurement in inches. It has to be in cm for the calculator to work.

I changed the script so the error message was clearer.

21. Murray says:

@Jon: So it means you're about 106 cm around the hip, right? That seems quite high for 78 kg weight. Anyone else with similar height and weight with similar body fat %?

22. Jerry Gildemeister says:

Who dreamed up this method? It seems to be a horrible measure of a seemingly healthy body. At age 76 I am a male, 5'5" tall (1.6764m0 and hips-butt measure 90cm which calculates to a 'score' of 25 which is deemed unhealthy. To get down to the 15 BAI level I would have to measure around 27" at the hip-butt line; with my waist line of 30". This index does not take into account all of the obese people with beer bellies and no butt. Hardly what one would consider a healthy body. What about an index of weight and height, accounting for bone structure, etc; plus how much fat is evident and where it is 'placed? It seems the originator of the current indexes carry far to much fat in their head to think and apply common sense!.

23. Murray says:

Yes, Jerry - the BAI has probably as many, if not more issues as the BMI.

In theory, the BAI will do a better job of identifying those with a pear shape compared to BMI. But time will tell, once more research is done.

24. uwe says:

I am 1.75m and have a strong muscular buttock of 98cm. I do martial arts since 35 years 3x/week and am considered slim and strong for my age. BAI puts me at 25% body fat and overweight which is crap.

25. Bonnie says:

BAI overestimates my body fat by 5% or so because I have an ass and am stick skinny elsewhere, but it's nice to see something rate me as 'healthy' (I am 'underweight' by BMI). I could definitely stand to gain another 10 lbs though, to look healthier and be stronger.

My boyfriend tests as overweight by BAI, I presume because he has an ass also.

26. Murray says:

@Bonnie - It seems BAI is over-estimating body fat %. But the researchers haven't fully tested this method, so time will tell. Perhaps they will tweak the formula after doing more research.

27. Kim says:

I am female & while I am overall very fit (BMI around 18%), I know I have disproportionally large hips (plenty of other online calculators that measure hip to waist ratio put my body fat higher than the BMI). But for some reason this BAI calculator will NOT accept my hip size! 39 inches = 99.06 cm, yet it continually tells me that I must've entered inches. Oh well. Just thought I'd pass that along.

28. Murray says:

Hi Kim

Could you please tell me the actual figures (for height and weight) you are trying to put in so I can see what's going on and fix it.

Your 99 cm is certainly right!

29. Kim says:

Cool!! I'd be happy to. Hopefully I converted things right. I tried clearing it out a few times & starting over, but got the error every time.

Height = 1676.4 (5'6")
Weight = 53.52 (118 lbs)
Hips = 99.06 (39")

30. Murray says:

Hi Kim

Ahh - I can see the problem now.

Your height needs to be in m, not cm! (The calculator thought you were the height of a mountain...)

If you enter 1.676 for your height, it works just fine.

I have modified the (red) messages in the calculator so they are more helpful. It now gives "typical values" for height and hip measure and hopefully that will reduce confusion.

31. Murray says:

Kim's case is interesting - because of her body shape (large hips), the BAI shows "obese" while her BMI is "normal".

As I said earlier, these obesity indexes give a very rough guide only. You need to have proper measurement of body fat before acting on either BMI or BAI.

32. Kim says:

Kim

33. Introducing: Weight Battle 2011 – Battle of the Baby Weight! | ? & Baby Makes Three – Prairie Baby Dreams ? says:

[...] a new scale, which is supposedly more accurate than BMI. It’s called “BAI” (body - adiposity index). According to the BAI, I am “healthy” - woot! - but with the BMI, I am [...]

34. Dove says:

While I can see where this would be flawed (my mom has a very pear-shaped figure and her hips are 1-2 dress sizes larger than her waist) the BMI is extraordinarily flawed. I'm a fairly muscular woman-I've always been an athlete- and I have a BMI of 29, which is almost obese (I do of course have fat as well as muscle). However my cholesterol, blood pressure, and overall health are all perfect, and my doctors have always told me to ignore the BMI because it basically does not take muscle into account for women.

I definitely think that body fat % is the best way to go, but I'm all for a new measurment that you don't have to buy an expensive machine to measure.

35. Rick says:

I have had my body fat percentage tested many times -- on a scale designed for that, with calipers and once underwater. I lift weights at least six hours a week and have consistently had a 15 percent body fat percentage -- with a range between 14 and 17 percent, usually depending on the time of day.

According to your test, I am obese with 28 percent body fat.

I have done a lot of heavy squatting over the years, and my hip circumference is 42 inches, or 106.68 centimeters.

My guess is that this test is better than the BMI at measuring muscle, which is not hard considering that the BMI test ignores muscle altogether, but the BAI is still not as accurate as the traditional (but frequently costly) measurements of body fat.

I don't believe this test is measuring muscle; it makes no sense that your body fat percentage for me is so much higher than all the other body fat tests.

36. Murray says:

Hi Rick and thanks for your input. I guess the majority of people have large hips due to higher body fat, but in your case, it sounds like solid muscle. Such real cases are good and shows any of these "quick and dirty" indexes are no substitute for the real thing (real body fat testing), albeit more expensive.

Quick disclaimer: The BAI was proposed by researcher Richard Bergman of the University of Southern California. I just wrote the calculator...

37. IP Daily Chat - Tuesday, 19 April 2011 - Page 4 - 3 Fat Chicks on a Diet Weight Loss Community Ideal Protein Diet says:

[...] Parentheses are in the wrong place. Here's a link to another article that has formula that works.

38. SUBAL says:

Kindly send via email the article that contain the new index i.e Body Adiposity Index (BAI), so that i can do research among the tribal & non-tribal population of India.

With best regards
Subal
Research Scholar

39. jesuis says:

This fails to take into account differences in body shape. It's telling me that im on the verge of being obese when my BMI is in the healthy range because my hip measurement is high. Thats not fat though, you can see my hip bones sticking out, thats just my body shape. A better way of estimating body fat percentage is a method that uses multiple body measurements, of which there are plenty.

40. Lisa Lauenberg says:

BAI is extremely inaccurate when it comes to people who have lost a lot of weight & have excess skin.

According to BAI, my body fat percentage is 36.4% or 56.42lbs. But I have had my body fat percentage tested on a Tanita scale which indicates that it is 23.7% or 36.74 lbs.

That's a HUGE margin of error. It would be like saying I'm 7.5 feet tall when I'm only 5, or that I weigh 225lbs when I really weigh 155.

When more accurate methods of measuring adipose tissue exist, there is no reason to resort to a highly inaccurate yardstick. We should not accept medical diagnosis or treatment based on a test which has such a wide margin of error.

41. Murray says:

@Lisa - thanks for your valuable comments. I hope Richard Bergman and the other researchers see these comments and modify their model before they proceed further.

42. Wayne says:

Thanks for putting up the calculator/graphs and dealing with the user interface issues. The method does seem to be a very poor esimator of body fat percentage, though: my BAI comes out to 27.1% (based on 1.7m hight, 68.9kg, 100cm hips, male 56yrs), compare to my Taylor "bioimpedance" scale measurements at just under 20%.

I tend to believe the Taylor number: I have an 80cm waistline, and I'm a moderately active athlete (though not very muscular, more middle-aged runner type). My body type isn't an outlier, and that 20% fits with the other estimators I find.

But that BAI number would put me at 'obese' ... granted, I'd like to lose another 5 pounds 😉

43. Cynthia says:

This doesn't make a lot of sense to me. My hips are 12 inches bigger than my waist. You can't tell me that someone with the same size hips and height but a 6 inch bigger waist would be at the same body fat. Sorry, not good.

44. [email protected] says:

I plugged in my measurements and found the results of the BAI to be much more accurate. My BMI results put me in the obese category, which no one would agree with- I wear size 11 pants!! I am certainly heavier than I should be, but I have a lot of muscle mass and dense bones. I have also had my body fat measured and the BAI more accurately reflected that number.

45. Michelle says:

@Murray "Kim" would only be "obese" if Kim is a male under 40. Because of the differences in fat distribution caused by hormones, a man with a hip circumference of 39" would be obese and a woman with the same hip circumference, "healthy."

Notice, either way the body fat percentage remains 27.6% which is healthy for a female but not a male, especially a young one.

46. Murray says:

@Michelle: Yes, gender is already built into the calculator!

47. Jaqueline says:

This measure doesn't make sense to me, doesn't it overestimate body fat if you carry your fat around your hips instead of on your belly? I thought that carrying weight in the hip area was supposed to be healthier?? I am petite, 105 pounds and wear a size zero or two. I have a small waist, but more ample hips. According to BMI I am in the lower to mid end of the healthy range. According to BAI, I am on the high end of the healthy range. I don't think I'm anywhere near being overweight.

48. Murray says:

@Jaqueline: The BAI is based on observations and comparisons with know body fat percentages. The averages were used to arrive at the BAI cut-off values. As is obvious from the responses, it doesn't describe everyone well, but then again, neither does the BMI!

49. Jaqueline says:

OK, but then why don't they incorporate both waist AND hip measurements into the calculation? I did get my body fat percentage done with calipers a couple of years ago (when I was about the same weight as I am now) and they found it to be 23%. According to BAI it is 31 percent. Pretty big difference. Are caliper measurements the most accurate?

50. Murray says:

@Jacqueline: According to Georgia State University, it is possible to achieve ±3% accuracy with calipers.

But to be fair to the BAI researchers, they have only done this with Mexican-Americans - they don't claim it is accurate for all ethnicities or body types.

51. Deb says:

I am thrilled that there is a new measure of health based on something other than body weight! For many years, anyone looking at me has said I was in great shape. No one could ever believe me when I told them my weight. So when medical professionals and fitness experts told me I needed to lose weight because my BMI was in the overweight category, I have ignored them. I simply carry more weight than the average woman (because of larger bones and/or more muscle). By the BAI estimate, I am right in the middle of the healthy category. Also the BAI estimate matches the body fat estimate from my scale almost exactly. You can add me to the caucasians for whom this estimate is accurate (and a better estimate of my health than BMI).

52. Buzz Lail says:

52 yo male with with little body fat, muscular and short 5'8,waist 32, hips 36, 163 lbs. BMI 24.9 (.1 from overweight) BAI 22.3 (22 overweight)
wildly inaccurate on both systems.BAI somewhat worse.

53. Murray says:

Thanks, Buzz. Hmmm - I wonder what percentage of people have a body fat percent close to the BAI.

As for BMI, terms like "overweight" are somewhat arbitrary. Your bone structure, build and metabolism all play a part in determining if you are overweight.

These scales are just an attempt to accurately approximate whether you have a healthy weight.

54. Sanjay says:

I LOVE this. In 2006 I weighed 348.4 pounds (871 kg), my hips were 65 inches (162.5 cm) and I'm 5'9" (1.725 m). BMI was 51.4 and BIA was 53.1 - both considered obese. I've since lost 124.4 pounds and 19 inches in my hips. My current BMI is 33.1 (still obese by that standard) and the BIA is 30.2 - which is considered healthy. While I won't stop my weight loss efforts (ever) it is SO nice to see a formula that takes something other than weight into consideration. I had a heart cath in May, and in spite of a very strong family history, I have no risk of heart disease. My lipids, blood sugar and blood pressure are also perfect. All that was holding me back from being "healthy" was the BMI. LOVE the BAI.

55. Ludmila says:

i measured myself and find that BMI and BAI are nearly each other, my question is what BAI is normal for woman in age between 50-60. My BMI is 28,6, its over normal; BAI is 30,1 - is it too much?. I know I need to loose my weight but its so difficult

I used metric units

56. Murray says:

@Ludmila: As the calculator shows, body fat of 23% to 35% is regarded as "normal" for a 41 to 60-year old woman.

But always consult your doctor before acting on anything here!

57. Ludmila says:

now i checked out and find that my BAI is in healthy way???? Really surprise, really

58. Albert Villaseñor says:

In your discussion of the BAI, you state that it was based on Mexican Americans and later you state that it has not been extended to "caucasians". You confuse race with ethnicity as most folks do. Check this out!

In any case, different folks accumulate fat in different places so an index based only on hip measurement and height can't be much of an improvement than the BMI. Back to the drawing board!

59. Murray says:

@Albert: Thanks for pointing out that ethnic issue. I have revised the sentence.

Actually, the most important thing really is probably hip measure, since the more fat we have there, the greater the incidence of obesity-related problems.

60. Cynthia says:

The more fat we have in the waist area, the greater the incidence of obesity related problems. Weight in the hip are is not that bad. The apple shape is what is so unhealthy.

61. Murray says:

@Cynthia - Yes, I actually wondered about this. Why did the developers of BAI use hip measurement ("at the level of the maximum extension of the buttocks posteriorly in a horizontal plane"), rather than waist?

62. Cynthia says:

Murray: The whole thing is crazy. Are they trying to say a person with 40" hips and a 28" waist has the same amount of fat as someone with 4o" hips and a 35" waist?

63. Murray says:

@Cynthia: No, they aren't! They don't even mention waist as part of the calculation.

Clearly, the 40" hip/35" waste person has some serious dieting ahead...

64. Anne Watson says:

Well, it would help if your computations could be changed to feet, inches and pounds. Do people over 79 no longer care if they are obese, or are just unable to make the computations. You are not the only ones who no longer include folks 80 and over.

65. Murray says:

@Anne: There are very few countries hanging on to feet, inches and pounds! Metric measures are the way to go for simplicity, ease of learning and cross-border understanding. I have a link to a conversion page in the article.

The table on which I based the cut-offs (linked in the article) stopped at age 79. Sorry about that.

66. Joana says:

The BAI could be a good tool to measure adiposity due, at least in part, to the advantages over other more complex mechanical or electrical systems. Probably, the most important advantage of BAI over BMI is that weight is not needed. However, in general it seems that the BAI does not overcome the limitations of BMI.

Citation: López AA, Cespedes ML, Vicente T, Tomas M, Bennasar-Veny M, et al. (2012) Body Adiposity Index Utilization in a Spanish Mediterranean Population: Comparison with the Body Mass Index. PLoS ONE 7(4): e35281. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0035281

67. Neutrino says:

The calculator is a great tool and shows the differences between BMI and BAI, as well as the limitations of these formulas. Please bear in mind that both indices were designed for statistical comparisons, to fully appreciate them, you would need data of thousands of probands.

68. Geoffrey Levens says:

Does not seem close to me. I am 5'3" (1.600 2 meter) tall, hip measure is 34" (86.36 centimeter), weight is 113 lbs (51.255 9 kg). Got BMI 20 which I expected but BAI - fat of 24.7% Bioimpedence measure gives me around 14.5% which seems closer. My abdominal pinch, about 1 inch lateral to center of navel is about 3/8"

69. David Law says:

Would be nice to have the feet and lb conversion built in.

I'm from the UK, age 43 (science background as well) and though we've long since gone metric many of us (including me) still use feet/inches for height and stone for weight.

Funny thing is I wear 30" jeans (UK men's jeans are measured in inches not cm) when I measured my hips could only find a cm tape measure 🙂

Height 5ft 11", weight 10 stone, hip 89cm

Used Google to find conversion tools, ideally you'd have them built in.

Just done the conversion and I'm going to forget I'm around 180cm in height and 65.5KG in weight a couple of weeks from now. I weigh myself on the Wii Fit, gives the weight in stone.

What a mess hey!

David

70. Murray says:

@David: It's because of that mess that I don't include British units in the calculator! Google wdoes iot very easily for those who must...

71. Dr Anabolics says:

Does BMI or BAI really make a difference since I can visually see that I am fat and overweight. My BF is approx 25% and I am guessing an average man is around 15%-20%

72. Dean Wichers says:

besides Racial/ethnic groupings there are 3 main types of human bodies. These types supersede the racial, etc. in normal skeletal constructions, thus weight distribution.

73. Totul despre celebrul indice de masa corporala (IMC/BMI) – Alege sa fii sanatos! says:

[…] soldurilor (indicele de masa adipoasa/„Body Adiposity Index”/BAI) – calculat cu formula lungimea soldurilor in cm/inaltimea in m1,5-18; cotatiile sunt cele […]

### Comment Preview

HTML: You can use simple tags like <b>, <a href="...">, etc.

To enter math, you can can either:

1. Use simple calculator-like input in the following format (surround your math in backticks, or qq on tablet or phone):
a^2 = sqrt(b^2 + c^2)
(See more on ASCIIMath syntax); or
2. Use simple LaTeX in the following format. Surround your math with $$ and $$.
$$\int g dx = \sqrt{\frac{a}{b}}$$
(This is standard simple LaTeX.)

NOTE: You can mix both types of math entry in your comment.

## Subscribe

* indicates required

From Math Blogs