A higher BMI increases the chance of developing long-term conditions, such as type 2 diabetes and heart disease.

The BMI calculation is just one measure of health. It cannot tell the difference between muscle and fat.

For example, if you have a lot of muscle, you may be classed as overweight or obese despite having low body fat.

BMI is a measurement of a person's leanness or corpulence based on their height and weight, and is intended to quantify tissue mass. It is widely used as a general indicator of whether a person has a healthy body weight for their height. Specifically, the value obtained from the calculation of BMI is used to categorize whether a person is underweight, normal weight, overweight, or obese depending on what range the value falls between. These ranges of BMI vary based on factors such as region and age, and are sometimes further divided into subcategories such as severely underweight or very severely obese.