Waist-to-Hip Ratio
Knowing your Waist-to-Hip Ratio is useful as it gives you a guide to where your body tends to store fat. It's easy to do and can be recorded regularly to give you a benchmark.
What's the Point?
Doctors appreciate that the Waist-to-Hip Ratio can reveal much about a person it not only tells you how much body fat you have, but also where your body fat is stored.
The latter is significant, as those who store more fat around their waists than around their hips and thighs have an increased risk of chronic diseases, including high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and stroke.
What Do You Need?
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Tape measure
- Assistant
How Do You Do The Test?
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Measure your waist at the narrowest point (usually around your belly-button)
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Measure your hips at the widest circumference (usually around the bony prominences)
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Perform the following calculation:
Waistline (inches) / Hips (inches) = e.g 24 in. / 34 in. = 0.70 or 70%
What Results Will I See?
The norms for general health are as follows:
Women = 0.7 or 70%
Men = 0.9 or 90%
A score of 1, or 100%, is considered to be dangerous, and indicates that you need to lose weight.
What's Being Measured Again?
This is a simple measure of health based on location and quantity of body fat.
