Waist-to-hip ratio is stronger predictor of health than BMI, finds study
Your body mass index could be hiding major health risks
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Your support makes all the difference.People with a normal BMI who carry extra weight around their middle are at a greater risk of death compared to those who carry their weight elsewhere, a new study has found.
Currently, the body mass index (BMI) is the most commonly used system by medical professionals to gauge whether or not a person is healthy, overweight or obese.
But now, scientists say that your waist-to-hip ratio is actually a far more accurate indicator of how healthy you are.
A score that calculates your body fat ratio based on your weight in relation to your height, BMI considers a healthy level to measure anywhere between 18.5 and 24.9.
Anything under 18.5 is considered underweight while scores between 25 and 29.9 are overweight, and anything above 30 falls into the obese category.
But, the problem with this is that BMI doesn’t account for where your body fat is stored, nor does it take lean muscle mass into account.
In comparison, waist-to-hip ratio is calculated by dividing the circumference of your waist by that of your hips.
After measuring more than 42,000 participants over the course of 10 years, the joint study from Loughborough University and the University of Sydney in Australia, found that those who had a normal BMI but carried their weight around the middle had a 22 per cent increased risk of death.
It showed that women with a ratio of 0.85 or more and men with a ratio of 0.9 or more indicated high levels of visceral fat, which is linked to cardiovascular disease, diabetes and stroke.
“Our research does back up the findings of previous smaller scale studies which show normal weight people with central obesity are at increased risk for all-cause mortality,” Professor Mark Hamer said in a statement.
“It is yet further evidence that even if you are within a ‘healthy’ BMI range but you carry weight around your stomach your health is still at risk.
“The message here is that if you do have central obesity, no matter what your BMI, you should take steps to reduce this fat.”
This article was amended on 30 March 2021 to change incorrect references to ‘hip-to-waist ratio’ to the correct ‘waist-to-hip’.
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