Are You Actually Overweight? How to Check
The report warns that by 2035 more than half of the world’s population will be overweight or obese.
According to the forecasts of the World Obesity Federation, Atlas 2023, this amounts to 4 billion people.
In his estimates, he used the body mass index, which is a number calculated by dividing a person’s weight in kilograms by the square of their height in meters. According to WHO guidelines, a BMI over 25 is considered overweight, and over 30 is considered obese.
But some experts argue that the measurement should be eliminated and replaced by the waist-to-hip ratio.
The simplified method does not take into account the distribution of muscle or fat.
People are classified as underweight (less than 18.5), healthy (18.5 to 24.9), overweight (25 to 29.9), or obese (30 or more).
Proponents say hip-to-waist ratio analysis gives doctors a better way to measure obesity.
This can help to know if a person has excess weight in the abdomen.
This ratio is calculated by dividing the waist circumference by the hip circumference. The result value is different for men and women. In women, if it ends with a number of 0.8 or less, it is considered low risk. For women, the low risk score is 0.8 or less, while the average risk ranges from 0.81 to 0.85 and 0.85 or higher.
For men, 0.95 or less, 0.96 to 1 or 1 or more.
Studies have shown that this extra weight around the belly can increase the risk of type 2 diabetes and heart disease.
Researchers at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, USA, and St. Anne’s University Hospital in the Czech Republic compared BMI with measurements from the waist to the hips.
The researchers found that people who were of normal weight but had a lot of fat around their belly had an 87% higher risk of developing these problems than those who had no fat around their belly.
The results also showed that participants were 52% more likely to develop diabetes and high cholesterol if their weight was centered around their belly.
A study presented by the European Association for the Study of Diabetes in Stockholm argues for the abolition of BMI in favor of waist-to-hip ratio.
The researchers measured the likelihood of a person dying early based on their body mass index, waist-to-hip ratio, or fat mass index (FMI), which is the amount of fat a person carries in relation to their height.
The results showed that a higher waist-to-hip ratio linearly increases the risk of death.
Source: Daily Mail