Health and fitness have recently become a cause for concern, even in the workplace, so the advent of some type of easily accessible BMI (body mass index) calculators is not surprising. Whether your business directly deals with the subject of health or not, having healthy, fitness-conscious employees is priceless. You can acquire such a staff by making body mass index calculators of any kind accessible to everyone in your office.

Fortunately, due to the high number of people who are interested in keeping track of their body mass index, there are many forms of BMI calculators. Simply choose the one that is most convenient for your business:

1. Give employees access to a body mass index calculator for ultimate ease of use.

2. Display a body mass index chart in your office.

3. Teach employees a body mass index formula that will help them figure out their BMI.

Action Steps
The best contacts and resources to help you get it done

Make body mass index calculation easy with a calculator

Many health websites have BMI calculators that are available to the public for free. Users simply need to enter their height and weight, and a body mass index formula will determine their BMI without the user having to perform any math. Many calculators are quite accurate, and many even offer suggestions on how to stay within a healthy weight range.

I recommend: Mayo Clinic is a reputable source for health information. Bookmark the company's website so employees can quickly and easily determine a healthy weight for their height. The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, or NHLBI, also provides a calculator on its website.

Consider displaying body mass index charts around your office.

If you want an at-a-glance healthy weight reminder for your employees, you should think about placing a body mass index table on a wall in your office. You can also bookmark such a chart online, as many websites provide them for free. Charts, particularly those that are color-coded, make calculating body mass index quickly a breeze.

I recommend: Health Discovery provides a free color-coded chart on its website, making it easy for employees to see whether they are in the healthy weight range. If you want to display a BMI chart on your wall, you can buy a BMI poster from Anatomy Warehouse.

Make a body mass index formula known to all employees

Employees can calculate their BMI on their own with a formula. This tactic is great for employees who do not want to rely on a website or chart to find their BMI. This way, even when employees are on vacation or just on the go, they can calculate their BMI and perhaps compare it with their old one if they are trying to lose weight.

I recommend: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website provides the standard BMI formula, as does freebmicalculator.net. Such sites provide answers for employees that are interested in finding out how BMI is determined.

Tips & Tactics

Helpful advice for making the most of this Guide

• •  Body mass index calculators can be great when trying to lose weight, as they can provide a ballpark number for what weight you should be. However, they are not always accurate, as they do not take into account muscle, age, or frame. If it is important to you to find out what your exact weight should be, visit your doctor. Once you find out your goal weight that way, you can use BMI calculators to monitor your weight gains and losses.

A recent trend in health and fitness has turned from just weight to Body Mass Index. BMI, as it is referred to for short, is determined based on your weight, height, sex and sometimes age.

To find Body Mass Index, simply plug the numbers into a tool to calculate BMI using the Body Mass Index formula. If you need to have a Body Mass Index chart on display, high quality files are easy to download and print for reference.

If you're looking for a Body Mass Index calculator, explore the following options:

1. Try a web-based BMI calculator for a quick estimate
2. Download and print out a BMI chart for display or reference
3. Buy a complete digital scale for measuring body fat percentage and other elements of weight
   

Action Steps
The best contacts and resources to help you get it done

Use an online Body Mass Index calculator to find BMI from height and weight

All you need to have on hand is your height and weight to find a quick estimate of your Body Mass Index. BMI calculators usually give different estimates for male and female bodies, and may also include age as a factor.

I recommend: The National Institute of Health offers an easy online BMI calculator in standard or metric units, so there's no problem if you don't know your height in centimeters and your weight in kilograms. Halls offers a separate Body Mass Index calculator for women, including age as a factor, as well as one for men.

Print out and display tables for calculating Body Mass Index

While Body Mass Index calculations can be complicated, many sites publish easy-to-read tables for people to find their height and weight, with BMI already calculated for each height and weight combination. A Body Mass Index chart is great to display in a fitness club or nutritionist's office.

I recommend: The Partnership for Healthy Weight Management offers a Body Mass Index chart along with a calculator on their website. You can also download a high quality file of a BMI table from the Center for Disease Control (CDC).

Use a digital scale if you have misgivings about the Body Mass Index formula

Because BMI takes only weight and height into consideration and ignores other factors such as muscle composition, athletes and others may want to consider a digital scale that measures body fat percentage and other facts about body composition. Body Mass Index may not accurately reflect the health and fitness of individuals with high muscle mass.

I recommend: Tanita is a well-known brand of digital scale manufacturing a variety of products to help you calculate your body fat percentage. Bodytronics sells a number of digital scale brands that offer a number of alternatives to Body Mass Index.

Tips & Tactics

Helpful advice for making the most of this Guide

• •  If you're displaying Body Mass Index charts in your fitness club or office, you may want to place a notice about what BMI is and how to use your BMI for a healthy lifestyle to make sure readers are adequately informed. Because Body Mass Index may be inaccurate for the health of athletes and some other body types, encourage people to understand BMI and use it as just one aspect of their fitness plan.