Host: Mignon Fogarty
Transcript: This episode originally aired December 27, 2005
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Adam: So what are the different metrics and standards used to evaluate obesity these days?
Mignon: Well, in the past Body Mass Index (BMI) has been the most popular method, and it has also been, when they look at obesity as a contributor to things like cardiovascular risk factors, they also often use body mass index as a measure. But there have also been studies out in the last couple of weeks showing that waist-to-hip ratio is a much better indicator of cardiovascular risk than body mass index, so they are suggesting that they switch to this new metric. Which is great, because it is also a an easier metric to measure – waist-to-hip ratio – because body mass index is a pretty complicated calculation.
Adam: And something people could even do at home.
Mignon: Right.
Adam: So how is waist-to-hip ratio measured?
Mignon: Well it's very simple. You get a tape measure and measure your waist and measure your hips. You divide that waist number by the hip number.
It's a little different for men and women. If you are a woman the waist divided by the hip should total under 0.85, and if you're a man it should be under 0.90 to be considered healthy. So if you get over those numbers you are considered to be in a higher cardiovascular risk group.
Adam: I think one thing that I heard about some of the BMI (body mass index) measurements is that is someone is really athletic or muscular they could actually have a very similar result to someone who is obese, but that's not the case for waist-to-hip ratio.
Mignon: That's right. If you're super muscular and extra fit your waist is still going to be smaller than your hips.
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