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Food & Diet

You are in: Food & Diet > Calculators > BMI calculator Child

BMI calculator - Child

Gender
Age years
Height
Weight
Results
BMI (kg / m sq)
BMI percentile

Notes on Interpreting Child BMI Scores

To interpret your child's BMI, you can also check the Girls BMI Growth Charts to see if your child has a healthy BMI.

Male Child BMI Chart

Female Child BMI Chart

Remember, a child is considered to be:
 - overweight if they have a BMI over the 95th percentile for their age
 - at risk of becoming overweight if they have a BMI between the 85th and 95th percentile for their age
 - underweight if they have a BMI under the 5th percentile for their age

And a child has a healthy BMI if it is between the 5th and 85th percentile.

A useful guide for checking what shape you're in

The most commonly used measure for assessing obesity is by calculating your body mass index, more commonly known as the BMI . It will tell you if you're a healthy weight for your height. Just enter your height and weight in the BMI Calculator, and click "calculate".

But remember this information is only a guide and it's aimed at healthy adults. It isn't suitable for children, young people or older people.

Also, if you have well-developed muscles, you may find that you will fall into the category of overweight on the Body Mass Index calculator, when in fact you may have a healthy body shape and very little fat. If you think this is the case, it may be an idea to do a waist measurement.

Whatever the results show, the most important thing to remember is that you need to make sure you're eating a healthy balanced diet and keeping physically active. Once your BMI has been calculated, and depending on the result, a weight management programme can be put in place an we can work on bringing this figure down into a healthier weight range if need be.

A quick guide that could be the start of years of health and happiness

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