Waist-to-hip ratio may beat BMI as health issue indicator

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.

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,” according to NPR.

Many organizations — from Yale to the CDC to the media — 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,” said researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.

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

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

In a new study published in JAMA, the lead author, Dr. Guillaume Paré, 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 and 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.