What?
New guidance from NICE (the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence) suggests that your waist size should be kept below half that of your height to reduce the risk to health of carrying a few extra pounds. NICE encourages those with a BMI of less than 35 to measure their waistlines to ensure they meet the target.
For example, the average male height in the UK is 5’9, or ~175cm, or 69 inches. Therefore, this particular male’s waistline should be less than half of 69 inches i.e. less than 34.5 inches.
Why?
Excess weight has a large effect on our health. It is linked to a number of conditions including type 2 diabetes, heart disease and high blood pressure. It is also associated with earlier death. Therefore, it is tremendously important for our health to avoid excess weight gain.
BMI (body mass index) is a common calculation used to estimate how much extra fat a person is carrying on their body. It compares a person’s height and their weight, and estimates whether a certain weight would make a person of that particular height obese. BMI is split into different categories, with a BMI of less than 18 being underweight, 18-25 being normal weight, 25-30 being overweight, and greater than 30 being obese. Unfortunately BMI can often over or underestimate a person’s body fat content. Commonly, weightlifters may have a lot of muscle that increases their weight without increasing their amount of fat. This will cause amount of fat to be overestimated and therefore will make BMI less useful for this patient.
The relationship between BMI and risk factors varies across different ethnic groups. Certain ethnic groups may require a lower BMI threshold for obesity, e.g. a South Asian person may have a higher amount of fat than a white person, even though they have the same BMI.
Waist-height ratio helps to eliminate or reduce this problem. In all people, it is known that higher amounts of abdominal fat will put them at greater risk of health complications than those with less abdominal fat. This is true across all people, and a larger abdomen is generally only caused by excess fat. This measurement therefore makes it a useful tool to ensure your weight is within safe limits.
How (does it affect me)?
If your BMI is under 35, then NICE are now recommending that you start to measure your weight compared to your height – right away!
This is not a health innovation, device or drug, but is simply good guidance. We know abdominal fat is a good indicator of being overweight or obese, and this guidance is designed to reinforce that message, in a way that affects all people equally.
By keeping your abdominal fat down, you reduce your risk of heart disease, diabetes and hypertension, and increase your overall longevity.
If you notice that your waist is more than half of your height, then steps towards weight loss should be taken. This can be in the form of a healthier diet, more exercise or reaching out to specialist services at hospitals or with the GP. If you are worried about your weight, have a read of myHSN’s guide to weight loss. And if your weight has been a problem for a long time, then you may need to explore bariatric surgery.
The BMI remains a useful tool, but is helped by the addition of this new measurement. It is a calculation that we can all easily perform and is a good general indicator of whether our weight is healthy.
Happy measuring!
As always, best wishes from myHSN
