Add another reactive expression

A reactive expression can call other reactive expressions. This allows you to modularize computations and ensure that they are NOT executed repeatedly. Mastering the use of reactive expressions is key to building performant Shiny applications.

In this exercise, you will use a reactive expression to calculate the health status based on the BMI.

This exercise is part of the course

Building Web Applications with Shiny in R

View Course

Exercise instructions

Add a reactive expression rval_bmi_status to calculate BMI status.
Use this reactive expression to replace BMI status calculations in the output.

Hands-on interactive exercise

Have a go at this exercise by completing this sample code.

ui <- fluidPage(
  titlePanel('BMI Calculator'),
  sidebarLayout(
    sidebarPanel(
      numericInput('height', 'Enter your height in meters', 1.5, 1, 2),
      numericInput('weight', 'Enter your weight in Kilograms', 60, 45, 120)
    ),
    mainPanel(
      textOutput("bmi"),
      textOutput("bmi_status")
    )
  )
)

server <- function(input, output, session) {
  rval_bmi <- reactive({
    input$weight/(input$height^2)
  })
  # CODE BELOW: Add a reactive expression rval_bmi_status to 
  # return health status as underweight etc. based on inputs
  
  
  
  
  output$bmi <- renderText({
    bmi <- rval_bmi()
    paste("Your BMI is", round(bmi, 1))
  })
  output$bmi_status <- renderText({
    # MODIFY CODE BELOW: Replace right-hand-side with 
    # reactive expression rval_bmi_status
    bmi_status <- cut(rval_bmi(), 
      breaks = c(0, 18.5, 24.9, 29.9, 40),
      labels = c('underweight', 'healthy', 'overweight', 'obese')
    )
    paste("You are", bmi_status)
  })
}

shinyApp(ui = ui, server = server)

Edit and Run Code