Many of us put on a little weight as we get older, a pound or two here and there, we go up a dress size, let our belt out and many of us think that’s inevitable, middle-aged spread, it’s just part of the process. I’m afraid the truth is that is not true.

Measuring obesity

People come in all different shapes and sizes. Some carry their weight around their middle, some carry their weight around their bottom and some are particularly muscelly. So you can see that the term Body Mass Index, which is just the ratio between weight and height, if you are particularly muscelly you’ll artificially have  a higher BMI so it doesn’t reflect their true risk. This is one argument against using BMI. Typically the term “look at an England rugby player” is used. They’re carrying a lot of weight but in their muscle, muscle weighs more than fat and so proportionally they have a BMI that suggests that they’re obese when in actual fact we know that they’re very fit and healthy. So, we have other ways of measuring obesity. What’s becoming increasingly used as it’s a much better indicator of risk is waist circumference. We know that the dangerous type of fat is the type that’s carried in and around your abdomen, we call it central fat. There’s a strong correlation between waist circumference measured with a tape measure that takes 10 seconds to do with your risk of this visceral fat that’s in and around your organs.

Waist circumference

Waist circumference has criteria that is equivalent to a BMI of 25 for being overweight or BMI of 30 for obese. Now in a woman you’d be at risk or be considered the equivalent of being overweight if your waist circumference was 80 centimeters or more in a man it would be 94 centimeters. Somebody who’s got a waist circumference that puts them in the higher risk bracket, the equivalent of being obese would be 88 centimeters for a woman and 102 centimeters for a man.

How is the waist circumference measured?

Waist circumference has to be measured in a particular way to maintain consistent levels. It’s not taken where somebody actually wears their belt and their waistline is on their trousers so they can’t go by what size their trousers are as a measure of what their waist circumference is. It’s measured halfway in between the hip bone and the lowest rib parallel to the floor. They take a deep breath in, then exhale and the measurement is taken when they’ve fully exhaled.

So, we need to determine, if we’re overweight and if so, to what level. That’s a fairly simple process. You can do no more than take a tape measure and measure your abdominal girth in the way that Dr. Capehorn’s just shown us. You can measure your height and your weight and then go online to any of the numerous BMI calculators and calculate your own BMI. The important thing is that you then act upon it. If you find, that by whatever method that you are overweight, you do need to do something about it. Go and see your doctor or nurse, look at the resources that they offer and do something about it. It’s vital.

Date posted: 27/01/2009