BMI Calculator — Body Mass Index for Adults
Quickly compute your BMI and see whether you fall in the underweight, healthy, overweight, or obese range.
- Healthy weight range
- 53.5 kg – 66.5 kg
- Scale used
- Asian / Malaysian (≥23 overweight, ≥27.5 obese)
About this calculator
Body Mass Index (BMI) is a simple ratio of weight to height, used as a population-level screening tool for body-fat related health risk. The standard formula is weight (kg) divided by height (m) squared. WHO classifies BMI as: under 18.5 = underweight, 18.5–24.9 = healthy, 25–29.9 = overweight, 30+ = obese. For Asian populations (including Malaysians), the Ministry of Health Malaysia (KKM) and the WHO Asia-Pacific guidelines (2004) suggest a stricter overweight cutoff of 23.0 and obese cutoff of 27.5, because epidemiological studies consistently show that cardiometabolic risk — type 2 diabetes, hypertension, dyslipidaemia, cardiovascular disease — rises at lower BMI values among East and Southeast Asian populations than among Europeans. Malaysians specifically tend to carry more visceral fat per unit of BMI than European cohorts, which is why our action thresholds are stricter. BMI is a screening tool, not a diagnostic — it is mathematically blind to body composition. Very muscular individuals (athletes, regular weight trainers, bodybuilders) often register as 'overweight' or even 'obese' on BMI despite low body fat, because muscle is denser than fat. Conversely, an older sedentary adult with normal BMI but high visceral fat (sometimes called TOFI — Thin Outside, Fat Inside) is at real metabolic risk that BMI completely misses. For these reasons, the Malaysian Clinical Practice Guidelines on Obesity recommend pairing BMI with waist circumference (≥90 cm men, ≥80 cm women is high-risk for Asians), waist-to-height ratio (<0.5 ideal), body fat percentage, and a basic measure of cardiorespiratory fitness for any individual decision. BMI tells you where you sit in a population — it doesn't tell you whether you, specifically, are healthy.
Formula
BMI = weight (kg) ÷ height (m)²
Example calculation
Example: 170 cm, 70 kg, Asian scale
BMI = 70 ÷ (1.7 × 1.7) = 24.2. On the Asian scale, this is just above the 23 overweight cutoff — though it would be 'healthy' under the standard WHO scale.
Frequently asked questions
Sources & references
Last reviewed: · Reviewed by the CalculatorHub editorial team.