Waist-to-height ratio

While BMI can give insight into obesity-related risks, someone’s waist-to-height ratio is a more accurate predictor of such risks. This is because it considers your waist, particularly the amount of fat that sits around someone’s abdomen. This fat consists of subcutaneous fat (fat under the skin) and visceral fat (fat around the organs). Both types of fat are associated with high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and type 2 diabetes.

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Abdominal fat is important to assessing your risk for these conditions. A larger waist would indicate excess fat inside your organs, which is unhealthy. Thus, providers like to use waist-to-height ratio to better understand the distribution of fat specifically in the abdomen.

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The waist-to-height ratio compares your waist circumference to our height. The smaller the difference between someone’s height and waist, the larger someone’s waist will be. Thus, more belly fat would yield a higher waist to height ratio, which means a greater risk of health issues. In general, the ratios are categorized in the following ways:
0.4 to 0.49: Healthy range
0.5 to 0.59: Increased risk
0.6 or above: High risk