The calculators give you a number. These explain where it came from, how to take the measurement properly, and what the number cannot tell you. Every claim is traced to a primary source, with the paper named.
Halfway between your lowest rib and the top of your hip bone, breathing out normally.
Where the tape goes, how tight, and when to breathe. Plus the part other guides leave out: the major health bodies measure at three different places on your body, and the published thresholds were built on only one of them.
It is a first question, not an answer. Add a waist measurement.
Accurate about populations, unreliable about individuals. What the research actually found, how often it misreads a person, the four things it cannot see, and the one extra measurement that tells you more.
The most reliable of the four most used resting equations in a 2005 review (Harris Benedict, Mifflin St Jeor, Owen, and the WHO, FAO and UN University equation), and still an estimate for any one person.
The resting calorie equation behind this site's BMR, TDEE, macro and calorie deficit calculators, worked through. What the 1990 study measured, why the familiar version is a rounded one, what it found about Harris Benedict, and where it still misses.
All 16 of them are free, work in your browser, and name the formula they used.
Each one names its source on the page: the WHO cut points for BMI, Woolcott and Bergman 2018 for Relative Fat Mass, Hodgdon and Beckett 1984 for the Navy method, Mifflin St Jeorfor energy, Thomas and colleagues 2013 for Body Roundness Index, Krakauer and Krakauer 2012 for the Body Shape Index, and the WHO 2007 growth reference for children.
Free, no account, and it works offline. 100,000+ downloads on Google Play.
This is not medical advice. Body Numbers is a calculator. It does not diagnose, treat or monitor any condition, and no number it produces should replace a conversation with a doctor or a dietitian. If a result worries you, or if you are pregnant, unwell, or under eighteen, speak to a health professional.
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