For over a century, doctors have been improving on the body mass index (BMI), their go-to method for determining whether a person has an unhealthy amount of body fat. Now, scientists are beginning to realize body mass index may not be the best indicator of a person’s fat level or the best predictor of their risk for health problems like heart disease. Instead of using BMI, a group of researchers from the UK say string will do just fine.
In their new study, researchers from Oxford Brookes University suggested a new method that’s been gaining acceptance of late: waist-to-height ratio (WHtR). They found that measuring a person’s height with string, then folding the string in half and seeing if it’ll fit around a person’s waist comfortably could be a better indicator of whether a person is overweight. Having too much fat around the abdomen has been linked to heart disease, diabetes, and other metabolic disorders.
One study from 2013, for example, found that larger waistlines correlated with lower life expectancy. In the press release, the researchers said, “We would like to show that Waist circumference is not only superior to BMI in first stage screening for the health risks of obesity, but it is also more efficient in practice and can be done by personnel with minimal training and resources.”