Maintaining healthy weight from childhood through middle age can help you prevent high blood pressure problems, and even studies prove this. Researchers have concluded that maintaining a healthy weight has a substantial impact on high blood pressure issues, especially between age 36 to 53. This indicates that weight control throughout your lifetime is the key to prevent high blood pressure issues and to maintain the required weight; you need to be aware of your Body Mass Index (BMI).

Being overweight is one of the root causes of many health problems that could pose severe risks to your life. Losing weight can prove to be beneficial to your overall health. And not more but you can easily see the change by losing as little weight as 10 pounds. Those with an extra weight with a BMI of 25 or more may face health issues, including high blood pressure.

Being obese or overweight puts a strain on your heart resulting in cardiovascular diseases and increases the risk of high blood pressure that can damage your blood vessels.

How to lose weight?

The mantra to lose excess weight is to eat right and workout regularly. You can start indulging in activities like jogging and aerobics to increase the level of physical activity. Knowing your BMI will help you understand what the ideal weight that you need to achieve and then accordingly, you can move towards your goal, i.e. following the required exercise and diet. If you need to lose excess weight, you must contact your healthcare professional to know how much calories you need for weight loss and what type of activities and diets are best suitable to your individual body needs.

Correlation between BMI and BP

Body Mass Index or BMI is a measurement of the human body weight in relation to the height. It is the measurement of fat in the human body. According to WHO, a BMI between 18.5 to 25 is normal, between 26 to 30 is overweight and above 30 is obese. The resistance of the blood flow against the walls of arteries is called blood pressure or BP.

There mainly two types of BP measurements:

  1. Systolic blood pressure (SBP) – SBP is the amount of pressure in your arteries when your heart muscle contracts.
  2. Diastolic blood pressure – Diastolic blood pressure, DBP is the pressure needed for the constant flow in the blood vessels as well as the filling of the ventricles before the next systole.

The correlation between BMI and BP might depend mainly on the intake of salt and levels of physical activities; both these factors are complex to standardize and measure across populations in different regions. Mean BP levels increase with an increase in BMI. People with overweight and obesity have a high risk of hypertension. In some cases, a low BMI level can cause an increase in the risk of hypertension. Looking at these factors, one must be aware of his/her BMI at every age. If you want to know your BMI, you can easily calculate using an online BMI calculator.