Waist-to-hip ratio trumps BMI in predicting serious health issues

The Body Mass Index calculator has been used for more than a century to measure obesity and potential health risks someone might have or that could occur.

According to NPR, the BMI was created in the 19th century by Belgian mathematician Lambert Adolphe Jacques to measure the “degree of obesity of the general population to assist the government in allocating resources.”

As of late, many organizations — from Yale to NPR to the CDC — have warned against using BMI to strictly measure obesity because it presents an “inaccurate measure of body fat content and does not take into account muscle mass, bone density, overall body composition, and racial and sex differences,” researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania said.

With BMI possibly on the outs, experts are turning to a measuring tape.

“Waist-to-hip ratio (WHR) may be more accurate than body mass index (BMI) in predicting serious health outcomes like cancer, heart disease, and death,” Health reported.

In a new study published in JAMA, lead author Guillaume Paré, MD, a professor of medicine at McMaster University, reviewed how to gauge risk factors for chronic disease better. The study tested three metrics, WHR, BMI, and fat mass index, to determine which systems were best at associating body fat and mortality.

By collecting data from almost 400,000 people in the United Kingdom, all within the age range of 30-60, the study found WHR had the most consistent association with mortality using Mendelian randomization — a method used to consider adiposity, or stored body fat.

“The researchers found that WHR had the strongest and most consistent association with all-cause and cause-specific mortality. This association was strongest in men,” according to the study, which indicated a relationship between WHR and death.

A healthy WHR is 0.95cm in men and 0.80cm in women. To measure your WHR:

Much like the BMI scale, which was modeled after Caucasian males from the 19th century, the WHR study consisted of testing Caucasian European samples. When measuring your WHR, experts recommend consideration of age, race and gender.