Metric of the Month: “Hip to Waist Ratio”

A new study of heart attack risk, which looked at more than 27,000 people around the world, promises to make “hip to waist ratio” the most commonly heard phrase in thousands of health clubs around the world, or at least on the East and West Coasts of the United States. The widely reported study found that the best indicator of the risk of a heart attack is not how much fat we carry, but where we carry it, and the place we don’t want to carry it is around our waist. The Interheart study, conducted by researchers at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, suggests that the risk of heart attack increases as
the ratio of waist size rises in proportion to hip circumference.
Those in the 20 percent of the survey who had the highest ratio were 2.5 times
more likely to have a heart attack than the 20 percent with the lowest ratio. What then, is a healthy ratio? In general, waist measurements were 90 percent of hip measurements, so anything less than 90 percent is more good news than bad.
And what should we do if our waist comes in at more than 90 percent of our hips? Researchers offer this advice: trim the waist, or pump up the hips. Hard to argue with.  Read more.