The Heart-Health Measurement You’re Probably Not Checking
Curated Lifestyle
You Should Know: For decades, doctors have treated BMI (a formula based on height and weight) as the be-all, end-all for whether someone is in a healthy weight range. However, a new study in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology that followed nearly 260,000 people for two decades found something that BMI alone often misses. That is, where body fat is located matters quite a bit.
Going Deeper: Researchers measured waist circumference and waist-to-hip ratio, and both proved better predictors of cardiovascular risk than BMI alone. Among people with a normal and overweight BMI, some still had an elevated waist-to-hip ratio, and their risk for heart attack and stroke ran 15% to 50% higher than the scale alone would suggest. So a result above 0.90 for men or 0.85 for women indicates added risk, according to the World Health Organization.
Takeaway: You can check your own ratio at home with a tape measure. Wrap it around the narrowest part of your waist, then the widest part of your hips, and divide the first number by the second.
Bottom Line: Where you carry your weight matters. BMI can still be a helpful rough estimate of how body weight affects your health, but it’s incomplete as best.
