User talk:Abuusapedia

Problem of Obesity: Mohammed Formula For Calculating Ideal/Desirable/Normal body weight
Obesity is considered as the number one public health problem in the USA. Although it started in the developed industrial countries, it is currently spreading like wild-fire all across the world. That is why many people have started to call it Globosity instead of Obesity. About 1/3rd of American population is obese and 2/3rd is either obese or over weight.

Obesity and over weight is not just a body-image, fitness or agility problem, rather it is associated with a host of common chronic co-morbidities like Diabetes, Hypertension, Heart Disease, Osteoarthritis, Gallstone and Cholecystitis, Steato-Hepatitis, Sleep Apnea, and certain Cancers.

The key cause of rapid rise of the problem can be incriminated to the lack of knowledge of what it is (definition), why it is (cause) and how it can be prevented or controlled. The problem is humongous but tools and research are scanty. Most general people do not know what should be the ideal/normal/ healthy body weight. Ironically, even the professionals who have been working on this field have no updated universally acceptable working definition of ideal body weight(IBW) and categorization of over weight and obesity. Ideal body weight percentage (IBW)% like body mass index (BMI) is used to categorize nutritional status of people either malnutrition or overweight-obesity. But there is no good easy tool to calculate Ideal or Desirable Body Weight.

By the way, one very anatomically interesting concomitant happening but overlooked by most of us, is the secular trend in increasing heights of humans paralleling the rise in prevalence of over weight or obesity. Across the globe average heights of people are increasing but this unique phenomenon failed to create appropriate cues to the researchers. Why the weight and height of people are increasing and is there a common cause or link for this phenomenally important biological physical evolution in humans, deserves research attention. Human biological scientists used to hold it as the natural fact that the height of a kid is average of its parents heights. In recent times, that rule is no more tenable. In all ethnic groups, now the heights of mature kids exceed the average of parents heights.

Although obesity is a giant public health problem, I believe, it is somewhat exaggerated as we do not take into account the current trend of height increase of humans. We are using BMI for categorization of obesity but it must be faulty because it is based on about half a century anthropometric survey data. The normal BMI (Body Mass Index) should be lower for shorter individuals compared to the taller ones. BMI in fact, doesn't truly measure body fatness, rather it is the measure of weight per unit body surface (per unit square heights). BMI can be analogized with foundation or frame of a structure. The taller the building or structure we need bigger foundation or rod size of the frame. So is the BMI. For taller people normal BMI should be higher than for shorter or medium height individuals. So, unless we do update the current BMI classification of weight status we will inflate the problem of obesity and assign unfair and misleading classifications for significant part of our shorter or taller population.

Dietitians/Nutritionists do this job using a decades-old Rule of Thumb or Hamwi formula or few other rarely used formulas. And those formulae, I do believe like many other dietitian-nutritionists, do not work good for many people, especially for individuals with lower and upper ends of height spectrum.

Hamwi Formula employs two different calculations for male and female. For adult women IBW in pounds = 100 pounds for first 60 inches height plus 5

pounds for each inches above 60 inches ( 5 feet). For example, a 64 inches

woman, her Ideal Body Weight [IBW] would be 120 pounds [ 100 pounds plus 4 x 5 pounds]. For men, 106 pounds for first 60 inches plus 6 pounds for every inch above 60 inches or Five feet. So, for example, the IBW in pound for 70 inches man would be 166 pounds [ 106 pounds plus 6 x 10 pounds]. These calculations would gives mean IBW but to get range of IBW, 10% of IBW would be subtracted or added with mean ideal body calculated from the formula. This widely used formula is cumbersome, somewhat inaccurate for heights of both extreme ends of height spectrum [very short or tall]. Moreover, with this formula we can not calculate IBW for people below 60 inches height [five feet].

Keeping the aforesaid problems of existing tools of weight classification in mind I started trying something innovative for a better tool of calculating Ideal/Desirable Body Weight (IBW/DBW). More importantly, unless we can provide people with easy tool to know about their normal or desirable weight we can not make them weight conscious and curb the core problem of obesity.

And with my closer observation of patients and people, and modest personal level research effort and playing with the numbers on heights and weights I had come up with an easy formula to calculate Ideal Body Weight. Calculating BMI by general population will not be feasible. But calculating desirable/ideal/normal body weight would be pretty easy for common people and make them weight conscious.

And moreover, my formula will also obviate present problems the dietitian-nutritionists face everyday in their current practice and it should be remembered by every one to make people and weight and health conscious.

Here is my formula and I call it as the MOHAMMED FORMULA for calculating Ideal Body Weight. This formula will be a good tool for all adult individuals short and tall but not for children. The formula will give mean ideal body weight in pounds and to get range for normal/ideal/desirable body weight we have to subtract or add 10% of obtained mean Ideal Body Weight (IBW)

My formula has four parts: all to calculating IDEAL BODY WEIGHT [IBW] using the height unit either in Inches [British System] used in the USA or Meter, height unit in Metric System, used universally across the globe.

MOHAMMED FORMULA FOR IBW

1) IBW (pound) = Height in Inches x Height in Inches x 0.0326.

2) IBW (kilogram) =Height in Inches x Height in Inches x 0.0148

3) IBW (pound) = Heights in Meter x Heights in Meter x 50.6

4) IBW ( kilogram) = Height n Meter x Height in Meter x 23

One can use any of the above formula to calculate IBW depending on what unit one would like to use. This formula ignores little virtual gender difference in body fat composition men and women.

Example of calculation, IBW of an individual with 65 inches or 1.65 meter height would be 138 pounds or 62.5 kilograms. Plugging the height units with above four formula we can figure out the weight:

1) IBW (pound) = 65 x 65 x 0.0326 = 138

2) IBW (kilogram) = 65 x 65 x 0.148 = 62.5

3) IBW (pound) = 1.65 x 1.65 x 50.6 = 138

4) IBW (kilogram) = 1.65 x 1.65 x 23 = 62.5

By: Mohammed Giashuddin MBBS, DTMH, MS, RD

Clinical Dietitian, New York, the USA.