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Find your body mass index against both the Indian and the international cut-offs.
Body mass index is your weight in kilograms divided by your height in metres squared. It is a rough screening number rather than a measure of health, but it is a useful starting point, and it matters for fertility, pregnancy and PCOS in ways many women are never told. One thing most calculators get wrong for Indian users: the familiar 25 threshold for overweight was set on European populations. South Asian bodies carry more visceral fat at the same BMI, so Indian practice treats 23 as the overweight mark and 25 as obese. This tool shows you both.
Enter your age, height and weight to see your BMI against both the Indian and the international cut-offs, plus the healthy weight range for your height.
Indian cut-offs, which are the ones used in clinical practice here, sit lower than the international thresholds most calculators show.
Underweight. Worth investigating rather than ignoring, since low body weight is a common and reversible cause of absent periods and difficulty conceiving.
The healthy range by Indian cut-offs. Metabolic risk is at its lowest here and fertility treatment tends to respond best.
Overweight by Indian cut-offs, though the international scale would still call this healthy. This is the band where insulin resistance often begins quietly.
Obese by Indian cut-offs. Strongly linked with PCOS, irregular ovulation, gestational diabetes and pregnancy complications, and responsive to modest weight loss.
BMI is not vanity arithmetic. In gynaecology it changes what happens next.
Fat tissue produces oestrogen, so both too little and too much disturb the hormonal signal that triggers ovulation. Women with a BMI under about 18 or over about 30 ovulate less predictably, and in many cases correcting the weight restores the cycle without any other treatment.
In PCOS, losing around five per cent of body weight is often sufficient to restart ovulation and improve insulin sensitivity. That is three to four kilograms for many women. The goal is rarely a dramatic transformation, which is worth knowing before starting.
BMI at booking determines screening for gestational diabetes, decisions about anaesthesia, growth scan frequency and delivery planning. Knowing your number before conceiving gives you time to act on it rather than being told mid-pregnancy.
The number describes a ratio of weight to height. There is a great deal it simply cannot see.
These are the situations where the number will mislead you, and what to use instead.
BMI is meaningless once you are pregnant, because the weight gain is expected and is not yours. What matters is your pre-pregnancy BMI, which sets your recommended total gain, and the trajectory your obstetrician tracks at each visit.
Growing bodies need BMI-for-age percentiles, plotted on a growth chart against children of the same age and sex. A raw BMI figure for a nine-year-old means nothing on its own and can cause needless worry.
Muscle is denser than fat, so a strong, lean body can land in the overweight band. If this is you, waist circumference and body fat percentage describe your health far better than BMI does.
Body composition shifts after menopause, with muscle lost and fat redistributed towards the abdomen even when weight stays the same. A stable BMI can hide a real change in risk, so waist measurement becomes the more useful number.
If your periods have become irregular, you are struggling to conceive, or you suspect PCOS, weight is one thread in a larger picture. A consultation with bloods will tell you what is actually driving it.
BMI is your weight in kilograms divided by the square of your height in metres. Someone who is 160 cm and 60 kg has a BMI of 60 divided by 1.6 squared, which is 23.4. The formula is the same worldwide; what differs is where the category lines are drawn.
Because the same BMI means more body fat in South Asian populations than in European ones, and metabolic disease appears at lower weights. Indian and Asia-Pacific guidance therefore uses 23 as the overweight threshold and 25 as obese, rather than 25 and 30. Using the international scale on an Indian patient underestimates risk, which is why this calculator leads with the Indian figures.
By the Indian cut-offs, between 18.5 and 22.9. For fertility specifically, the range where ovulation and treatment response tend to be best sits roughly between 19 and 25. But a single number is a poor summary of health, and a normal BMI with a large waist can carry more risk than a slightly raised BMI with a small one.
Yes, at both ends. Being underweight can stop ovulation altogether, and being significantly overweight makes ovulation irregular, lowers the response to fertility drugs and reduces IVF success rates. The encouraging part is that these effects are largely reversible, and modest changes make a measurable difference.
No. Once you are pregnant the number stops being meaningful. Your pre-pregnancy BMI is what determines how much weight gain is appropriate: roughly 11 to 16 kg if you started in the healthy range, and less if you started above it. Your obstetrician will set the target.
It may still matter, because insulin resistance and raised lipids develop quietly for years before symptoms appear, and they appear at lower BMIs in Indian women. A fasting glucose, an HbA1c and a lipid profile will tell you far more than the BMI figure alone. Feeling well is reassuring but it is not the same as being screened.
For Indian women, a waist circumference below 80 cm is the usual target, measured at the midpoint between the lowest rib and the top of the hip bone. Above that, the risk of type 2 diabetes and heart disease rises regardless of what BMI says.
Slowly enough to keep it off. Half a kilogram to one kilogram a week is the usual guidance, and in PCOS a five per cent reduction is often enough to restore ovulation. Rapid loss disrupts cycles in its own right, so crash dieting is counterproductive if you are trying to conceive.
