The Waist-Hip Ratio

There many developments in health science and technology that most people today are not familiar of, unless they are working within the relevant field of interest. Even health professionals are not that well-informed as we assume they. One of these well-documented but obscure fruit of modern science and technology is the waist-hip ratio, or WHR.

IN ADDITION to the body mass index (BMI), the waist-hip ratio (WHR) is a reliable alternative in predicting risk to heart diseases. For the same purpose, it is a measure of obesity, an indicator of other more serious health conditions such as heart diseases, diabetes, and hypertension.

This method is popularized by the World Health Organization Stepwise approach to Surveillance (WHO STEPS).

Research shows that people with apple-shaped bodies (have more weight around the waist) face more health risks than those with pear-shaped bodies (more weight around the hips).

WHO STEPS defined abdominal obesity as a WHR of above 0.90 for males and above 0.85 for females. This is roughly equivalent to a BMI of above 30.0. These findings are based on the WHO report, Waist Circumference and Waist-Hip Ratio, a special outcome of a WHO expert consultation presented in Geneva, Switzerland in December 2008.

The National Institute of Diabetes, Digestive and Kidney Diseases also observed that women with waist-to-hip ratios of more than 0.8 are at increased health risk because of their fat distribution. Conversely, men with a ratio of more than 1.0 increase also their health risk.

At a study in 2005, conducted by Frank Marlowe, Coren Apicella and Dorian Reed of the Department of Anthropology in Harvard University (Cambridge, Massachusetts), observed that men with WHR around 0.9 have been shown to be... [READ MORE]

This article appears in SunStar Cebu newspaper on 07 March 2012.

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