Development of a Digital Body Mass Index (BMI) measuring device for low-resource settings

Abstract

The global burden of nutrition-related diseases majorly: diabetes, obesity, and cardiovascular diseases have been on a geometrical increase. One way of knowing the risk factor of these is by accurately measuring the Body Mass Index (BMI) of an individual. The design  of a digital BMI device, which measures and displays a subject's BMI, was executed. Materials used include an ultrasonic sensor  for height measurement, load cells for weight measurement and an Arduino UNO microprocessor which receives the output from  measuring devices, calculates the BMI and sends it for display on a liquid crystal display (LCD) screen. This device depicts a low-cost  solution for accurate measurement of a subject’s BMI. The results of the tests performed on the data obtained from the anthropometric  measurements of eight subjects using the digital BMI device, a stadiometer and a weighing scale proved the equipment is reliable in BMI  measurement, with 0.32 root mean square error (RMSE) compared to the 1.19 RMSE gotten from the BMI measurement calculated  from a wall-mounted height measurement meter rule against the stadiometer measurement.