BMI Calculator
August 30, 2013
A person’s body mass index is a simple calculation based on height and weight that classifies the person as underweight, overweight, or normal. The formulas, for imperial and metric units, are:
BMI (imperial) = weight in pounds / (height in inches)2 * 703
BMI (metric) = weight in kilograms / (height in meters)2
The usual categories are:
BMI <= 18.5: underweight
18.5 < BMI < 25: normal
25 <= BMI < 30: overweight
30 <= BMI < 40: obese
40 <= BMI: morbidly obese
For example, the BMI of a person who is 5′ 4″ and 125 pounds is 21.5 (normal) and the BMI of a person who is 190 centimeters and 95 kilograms is 26.3 (overweight).
Your task is to write a program that calculates the BMI and category given a person’s height and weight. When you are finished, you are welcome to read or run a suggested solution, or to post your own solution or discuss the exercise in the comments below.
Programming Praxis 
My version in Python. I cheated a little with the categories. According to specs underweight is when bmi <= 18.5. Here it is if bmi < 18.5.
CATEGORIES = zip([18.5, 25, 30, 40, 1000], ["underweight", "normal",
"overweight", "obese", "morbidly obese"])
WEIGHT_CONV = dict(zip(["kg", "lbs", "ounce"], [1, 0.45359237, 0.0283495231]))
LENGTH_CONV = dict(zip(["m", "cm", "inch", "ft"], [1, 0.01, 0.0254, 0.3048]))
def val_metric(value, conv):
"""convert to metric units (kg, m)
allowed: 5 ft 8 inch or 100 lbs 3 ounce
"""
elements = value.split()
total = 0
while elements:
total += float(elements.pop(0)) * conv[elements.pop(0)]
return total
def bmi(weight, length):
w = val_metric(weight, WEIGHT_CONV)
l = val_metric(length, LENGTH_CONV)
bmi = w / l ** 2
for c, txt in CATEGORIES:
if bmi < c:
cat = txt
break
return bmi, cat
print "bmi=", bmi("160 lbs", "5 ft 7 inch")
Hopefully this time with better formatting:
CATEGORIES = zip([18.5, 25, 30, 40, 1000], ["underweight", "normal", "overweight", "obese", "morbidly obese"]) WEIGHT_CONV = dict(zip(["kg", "lbs", "ounce"], [1, 0.45359237, 0.0283495231])) LENGTH_CONV = dict(zip(["m", "cm", "inch", "ft"], [1, 0.01, 0.0254, 0.3048])) def val_metric(value, conv): """convert to metric units (kg, m) allowed: 5 ft 8 inch or 100 lbs 3 ounce """ elements = value.split() total = 0 while elements: total += float(elements.pop(0)) * conv[elements.pop(0)] return total def bmi(weight, length): w = val_metric(weight, WEIGHT_CONV) l = val_metric(length, LENGTH_CONV) bmi = w / l ** 2 for c, txt in CATEGORIES: if bmi < c: cat = txt break return bmi, cat print "bmi=", bmi("160 lbs", "5 ft 7 inch")Kawa has built-in support for Quantities (numbers with units), so here’s a solution using them instead of case-lambda:
;;; Kawa knows about the units g, m, and cm, but not kg, ft, or lb, so add those. (define-unit ft 12in) (define-unit kg 1000g) (define-unit lb 0.453592kg) (define (bmi (weight ::quantity) (height ::quantity)) ::double (let* ((weight ::quantity (+ 0.0kg weight)) ; force to kg (height ::quantity (+ 0.0m height)) ; force to m (bmi-with-units ::quantity (/ weight (* height height)))) (*:number bmi-with-units))) ; drop the unitsThe
bmi-classfunction is the same as above.(bmi 95kg 190cm) =>26.31578947368421
(bmi 125lb (+ 5ft 4in)) =>
21.4559633220829