Waist Measurement And Healthy Weight Management

The notion of medical tests can call to mind visions of large

, complicated and often radioactive machines or of white-coated technicians labouring over slides and vials, but health tests that are low-tech, simple and direct can still provide meaningful and useful information.

A case in point is the waist measurement test, a test which is the essence of simplicity, but which nonetheless provides a reliable way to determine if a person is at risk for heart disease or one of the many other diseases associated with abdominal obesity, including diabetes, hypertension and cancer.

A correlation between abdominal fat and disease is supported by research showing that fat deposits in the hips and thighs are less dangerous than deposits in the abdomen. At least in part, this is because excess abdominal fat is accompanied by excess fat around the heart, liver and other organs. This is not the case for fat stored in the hips and thighs.

To perform the waist measurement test, use a flexible tape measure. While standing, exhale, and wrap the tape around your body just above the top of your hipbones, approximately even with your navel. The tape should be snug without pinching and should remain level as it goes around your waist.

That is all there is to it.

Health risks increase with waist measurements of 80 centimetres for women and 94 for men, and that the risk become serious for women and men at measurements of 88 and 102 centimetres respectively.

If the waist measurement result is in the danger zone, the implications for women's health are clear: Any weight loss program should include strategies to reduce the waist. The problem, according to researchers, is that programs that claim to focus on this area of the body do not have much success.

However, there is some good news. In a study whose results were published in the medical journal Obesity in 2008, a group of overweight women was put on a diet that was highly restricted, but which did not have any specific focus on waist size. On average, the women lost 20 percent of their weight, accompanied by a 19 percent decrease in body mass index. Waist measurements fared even better, falling 23 percent, and fat surrounding the heart fell an average of 32 percent.

The research to date strongly supports two conclusions. First, a healthy waist size comes about as the result of a good overall diet and not as the result of any approach that specifically targets the waist. Second, there is a proven connection between waist size and overall health, and, in light of that connection, it is better to pay attention to regular waist measurement than to the numbers on any scale.

by: Chelsi Woolz

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