Waist Size
Waist circumference
Waist Size:
Your waist size indicates whether you have an apple shape and tend to carry fat around your midsection. Your health risks increase even further with increasing waist size.
Waist circumference is a convenient and simple measure which is unrelated to height, correlates closely with BMI and the ratio of waist to hip circumference, and is an approximate index of intra-abdominal fat mass and total body fat.
A useful measure of body fat distribution is the waist circumference. Measure your waist circumference at the navel. This allows you to measure fat around the abdomen that is more of a health risk. Changes in waist circumference reflect changes in risk factors for cardiovascular disease and other forms of chronic diseases, even though the risks seem to vary in different populations. There is an increased risk of metabolic complications for men with a waist circumference ≥102 cm, and women with a waist circumference ≥ 88 cm. It is a great idea to measure “waist loss” as well as weight loss.
Sites for You:
Classification of abdominal obesity by waist circumference
MaleFemales
Not Overweight< 94.0 cm< 80.0 cm
Overweight
Pre-obese94.0 – 101.9 cm80.0 – 87.9 cm
Obese≥102.0 cm≥88.0 cm
Waist-Hip Ratio:
Waist-to-hip ratio is a simple but useful measure of fat distribution. Most people store their body fat in two distinct ways: around their middle (apple shape) and around their hips (pear shape). Ratio is calculated by dividing your waist measurement by your hip measurement. (Hips are the widest part of your butt).
Women should have a waist-to-hip ratio of 0.8 or less. Men should have a waist-to-hip ratio of 0.95 or less.