I don't know how long it;s been around, but it is now said the BAI (body adiposity index) is the new BMI. BAI measures body fat according to your height and hip measurement. According to my BMI, I am obese. But according to BAI, i'm overweight . A little better lol.

Interesting. I find it kinda crazy based on just height and hip circumference alone it could give an accurate reading, it says I'm 30.3%, last caliper reading almost a month ago (7 points) said 33%, so it's possible it could indeed be accurate, though I don't know how .

That being said, of course I love that it told me I'm "healthy". Being real though, I know that's not true. I'm still dozens of pounds over weight, in fact still around 5 pounds to go until I'm no longer obese by BMI standards. Even if BMI is outdated a bit, I doubt I'd be considered a healthy weight by ANY standards.

Very interesting though!!! Thanks for sharing! I love doing different calculators like that!

This BAI stuff is interesting...I'm not sure how good it is.

I skimmed through the original paper which was published in Nature, so it clearly has some validity (attached if you're interested).
The initial correlation between BAI and actual adiposity (calculated according to x-ray absorptiometry) is about 0.790 which isn't amazing (a true linear correlation would be 1) but it is definitely statistically significant (p<0.001). When they applied it to another population group, they got a correlation of 0.85 which is somewhat better.

The attached table shows how well correlated it is - apparently it is best for % adiposity over 20%.

Here's an interesting image too - obviously, the BAI gives more info than BMI but is it better than BMI for everyone? What do you guys think?

Ahhhh what is old is new again! I remember a hip/height/weight chart back in 1991. I remember liking it better than BMI at the time, but that was just because it said I could weigh more.


OOHHH wait, BAI is different. The one in 1991 used weight ALSO. It was a pretty dang complicated chart


I just looked back through my body log on fit day when I was 180 lbs my hips were 43 and according to BAI I was still in the healthy range. In my before/after pics link that was taken within a week or so of that first before pick...uh, no I was NOT at a healthy weight then. I just have no hips/booty.

Of course the problem may just be in their classification system. Since when is 23% body fat "under weight" for women? They are calling the "acceptable" range healthy and the "fitness" and "Athlete" range underweight.

From a straight bodyfat % calculation it is within a couple points of my hand held electrostatic and my tanita scale. But if you want to try to calculate body fat % from measurements I would use naval circumference instead. I've seen good tracking with it and it uses more data. For example 8 years ago my hips and weight were the same as they are now but my waist was nearly 4 inches bigger. Naval reflected that.

I don't get it. I think it's impossible to determine a person's fat percentage or if they are a healthy weight just by measuring their hips and height. My butt is HUGE but my waist is much smaller. My arms are really big but that doesn't factor in at all either. I'm going to have to label this calculation as utterly useless.

Well, for me it's saying it's 28.9% bodyfat and considering my body fat scale ranges from 25-29%, it's probably in the ball park.

Yeah, not at all accurate for me. It says that I am nearly 19% bodyfat. Calipers put me at 11%, and visually I would say I'm about 12%.

Really though, do any of those numbers matter? If you like what you see in the mirror, and how your clothes fit, that's the most important thing.

It put me at 32% body fat, or high end of healthy. My BMI is just below 28, or overweight. Hmm.

I personally like to use all the different ways to measure body fat via measurements and then use the one that says I have the lowest body fat.

Interesting, but flawed When I was 96 pounds, my hips were 36".... Bones are wide.... so according to this; at 96 pounds and 5'3" my bodyfat was 27.2% ... I had NO FAT! Hardly 27% worth lol

I think this calculation could make "some" sense for a pear shaped person but i dont think it can make any sense for an apple shaped person with no hips but accummulating fat in the stomach. I dont know its like johnp has said do you prefer to believe the lowest calculation of your body fat or the most accurate one?