Keep Your BMI Stable

By Editorial Staff

Body mass index (BMI) is frequently used as a barometer for whether your weight is in the safe range in terms of health risks. Too high a BMI in particular may signal obesity, which carries an increased risk of diabetes, cardiovascular disease and even cancer.

Researchers evaluated BMI variability and heart health by assessing BMI over multiple time points among more than 150,000 adults without cardiovascular disease or cancer at baseline. During an average of 3.5 years of follow-up, participants with greater BMI variability were significantly more likely to develop cardiovascular disease, and/or suffer a cardiovascular event related to CVD, compared to participants with low BMI variability.

The take-home point: Keep your BMI stable! While losing weight is challenging, do your best to make your first attempt to lose weight your last one. The more you lose weight, gain weight and lose it again, the more your BMI fluctuates, which as this study shows, is bad for your heart, pure and simple.

So, how do you lose weight – and keep it off? That's the age-old question, but your doctor can help answer it by outlining a sensible, achievable weight-loss program that does more than drop the pounds; it will teach you how to maintain your new weight (and new BMI) for a lifetime.

Note: BMI is not the only measure of healthy weight. That's because it doesn't account for your body type relative to muscle and other variables. For example, someone can be in great physical shape and still be considered overweight per the BMI.