According to a study published in The Lancet, India ranks third and fifth from the bottom respectively among countries where 19-year-old girls and boys have a low body mass index.
- The study provides new estimates for height and BMI trends in 2019 across 200 countries after analysing data from 2,181 studies.
What is BMI?
- Body Mass Index (BMI) is a person’s weight in kilograms divided by the square of height in meters.
- World Health Organization guidelines define a normal BMI range as 18.5 to 24.9, overweight as 25 or higher, and obesity as 30 or higher.
- The mean BMI of 19-year-old boys is 20.1 in India, compared to a high of 29.6 in the Cook Islands and a low of 19.2 in Ethiopia.
- For Indian girls, the mean BMI is again 20.1, compared to a high of 29.0 in Tonga and a low of 19.6 in Timor-Leste.
- The mean height of Indian 19-year-olds is 166.5 cm for boys and 155.2 cm for girls, well below the high of Netherlands boys (183.8 cm) and girls (170 cm).
(Source: The Indian Express)
