For example, for most people, BMI is a good way to assess body fat, overweight, and health risk. But BMI is not accurate for those who are muscular, short in stature, or older. For example, someone who is 5 feet 10 inches tall and weighs 220 pounds with 12 percent body fat would be considered obese according to BMI standards. Clearly, someone with 12% body fat is not obese. To determine your risk for obesity-related diseases such as type 2 diabetes, hypertension and heart disease, it is best to consider BMI along with your waist circumference. To reduce the risk of obesity-related diseases, people with BMIs between 25 and 29.9 and between 30 and 34.9 should have a waist size no larger than 35 inches for women and 40 inches for men. So yes, you can be overweight and healthy, according to the National Institutes of Health's 1998 report, Clinical Guidelines on the Identification, Evaluation, and Treatment of Overweight and Obesity in Adults. Overweight people can be considered healthy if their waist size is less than 35 inches for women or 40 inches for men and if they do not have two or more of the following conditions: high blood pressure, high blood sugar, high cholesterol. The guidelines emphasize that overweight people should not gain weight and, preferably, should lose a few pounds. Other risk factors, such as smoking, also influence whether a