Committed: Know your child's Body Mass Index (BMI)

To use the BMI calculator for children you need to gather some information - your child's height, weight, date of measurement, date of birth, and sex.

Guidance on how to measure your child using a BMI calculator. The calculator results will explain which weight category your child is in.

For children, BMI is used to screen for obesity, overweight, healthy weight, or underweight. However, BMI is not a diagnostic tool. For example, a child may have a high BMI for age and sex, but to determine if excess fat is a problem a health care provider would need to perform further assessments. These assessments might include skinfold thickness measurements and evaluations of diet, physical activity, family history, and other appropriate health screenings.

BMI-for-age weight status categories and the corresponding percentiles are shown in the following table.