Waist to height ratio taking over BMI

  • Have any of you heard about the new way to check for "weight" health? You take your waist size and measure it against you height? I saw this on Doctor Oz a couple of months ago and then read an article about it the other day. I guess this has proven more accurate than the standard of the BMI. I find this interesting because I have always been a "big" girl. Muscular, larger bone structure and broader than most. If this waist thing is accurate then me feeling HUGE my whole life because my BMI was not "right" was a waste of worry. My waist to height ratio now puts me in at just under overweight. So I know that I need to lose some more weight, but if I lost just 20 more pounds I would be the same weight that I was in high school and considered healthy with the new measure. What do you all think about this?

    -I guess this is the new measure because stomach fat has been linked to more diseases? I think that is what I read.
  • I don't know if the measurement will 'take over' as a measurement of obesity from BMI but at least this calculation takes account of where fat is stored as its been well documented for some time that abdominal fat is much worse for our health than fat stored elsewhere.

    This is really why I've chosen a goal which still leaves me in the 'overweight' category by BMI and yet my waist measures 31" and in body fat analysis I have low levels of visceral fat. I'm happy that I'm healthy at a higher weight than was traditionally accepted as normal.

    Kitty
  • I totally agree. It's nice to know that I don't HAVE to weight X number because the BMI says so. We all have a different idea of where we feel most beautiful and I, like you, prefer the higher number for my frame (not to say that someone mu height who wants to weigh less is wrong) because that is what I personally feel best at. And on a side note, I just love food to much to maintain some of the lower numbers.