Inspiration

As i am a Health Informatics student , i wanted to create a project which could help others to keep a check on their health and fitness.

Due to last year's pandemic everyone was in their homes and lacked physical activity. Many people had to work from home for long hours sitting in front of their screens and living a sedentary lifestyle. Due to this many became obese and overweight which was not good for their health.

So i decided to create a program which could help people to check their BMI and maintain a healthy weight.

What it does

The program takes input from the user about their height (in cm) and weight (in kg) to determine the body mass index of the user.

It then prints the result along with the category which the user falls into like underweight, healthy weight,over weight , etc. It also gives diet and exercise recommendations for some categories. It also gives risks associated with being underweight or obese.

How i built it

The program is built using python language in atom ide editor. It uses input element to take input from the user and using if-elif statements prints the result and bmi category of the user. The formula used to calculate the users bmi is : weight / (height/100)**2

Challenges i ran into

One challenge i faced was that the bmi result was showing upto many decimal places which would make it complex. So to fix it i used the round () function in python to round off the digits upto 2 decimal places to make it easy to understand for the user.

Accomplishments that i am proud of :

I was proud that at least i could participate and submit a project , no matter how simple it was. I just wanted to explore and there is a long way to go. Thank you for providing this oppurtunity .

What i learned

I learnt how hackathons work and had a good experience as this was my first hackathon :)

What's next for BMI Calculator

I plan to convert this into a fully fledged health and fitness app , which would have more options for the users. Like i can add a calorie counter , a BMR calculator , providing specific diet plans and charts , articles about various categories , diets (like keto -diet , vegan diet, etc.) , exercises and how to live a fit and healthy life etc.

I also plan to add support for various other units like lbs, pounds and inches for easy worldwide calculation.

Further i plan to add a video and audio and chat support with various professional trainers and nutritionists as it would be great a help for the users . For this i can use Agora web sdk api.

Monetization

I was thinking to add specific ads , like for example if the bmi result shows underweight then a dumbell advertisement can be shows or a weight gainer / mass gainer ad can be shown after the result. Similarly for overweight / obese categories a treadmill ad can be shown.

Business Model

Apart from advertisements when the video – audio and chat interface will be integrated to connect the user with Dieticians, Nutritionists, and Fitness trainers a small fee can be taken for that .

Membership options can also be added to enjoy full functionality of the app including user specific diet planner and assistance by a personal fitness trainer .

Market

I have seen some BMI calculator apps on the playstore but very few of them offer diet recommendations , exercises to do , risks associated with being obese or underweight . They just only show the BMI and the category.

But as a user I would like if after my BMI results are shown , I can see what foods to eat or exercises to do for maintaining a healthy BMI .

I would also like to see various articles on how BMI works and how is it calculated . So in this way , a good and informational BMI app can be created .

Mental Health

In today’s social world many people have anxiety and stress due to their weight and are a victim of body shaming which impacts their mental health and confidence.

Some people have Psychological Eating Disorders like Anorexia Nervosa , Bulimia Nervosa and Binge Eating disorder . And so for them knowing their BMI and understanding their metabolism properly is important.

So to tackle these problems in the future when the app is developed , we would offer specific diet plans for such people and the option to connect with a psychiatrist and psychologist .

Thank you Hriday Sehgal

Built With

• atom
• python