Confused about how to measure waist - am I at risk or not?
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But, but, that is where the tape measure is on the girl in the pic I posted above. Half way between her lowest rib & the top of her hips.SingRunTing wrote: »Hence why I said "But every time I look at medical studies, they use the same definitions"
If you've seen a study use a different definition, I'm all ears (not being sarcastic, I'm the type who genuinely likes to read studies and learn new things). I don't really have a horse in this race. Like I said earlier, I track both my smallest & largest abdominal measurements.
Yes, this one:I did a little research. LOL, I'm a total nerd like that.
Measurement
World Health Organisation's protocol
2.5 Summary and conclusions
Waist circumference should be measured at the midpoint between the lower margin of the least palpable rib and the top of the iliac crest (my personal edit -- the iliac crest is the top of the hip bone), using a stretch‐resistant tape that provides a constant 100 g tension. Hip circumference should be measured around the widest portion
of the buttocks, with the tape parallel to the floor.
{Reference} "Waist Circumference and Waist-Hip Ratio, Report of a WHO Expert Consultation". World Health Organization. 8–11 December 2008. Retrieved March 21, 2012.
http://whqlibdoc.who.int/publications/2011/9789241501491_eng.pdf
I'm going to read the article (thanks for posting it), but I don't understand why you're arguing with me...
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lemurcat12 wrote: »Wow, some properly thick people here, and I'm not talking about their physical appearance. If you are fat, you measure where the fat is at, i.e. the widest point.
So you are ignoring all of the instructions from actual health organizations and the like?
The widest point for women is typically not the waist, so that's not really great advice. For men it might be correct. For women it's between the hip bone and ribs (not around them), whether that's your widest point or not (it's unlikely to be).
if it's halfway between hip bone and ribs, that seems like the smallest part. i thought people said belly button before.0 -
lemurcat12 wrote: »Need2Exerc1se wrote: »If you mean how much to lose to reduce the risk, then you need to get your waist to half of your height. That is the point at which risk increases.
For example, if you are 5'5" (65") then your waist should be 32.5 " or less to reduce risk of disease.
I seriously doubt that your risk goes down dramatically if you are 32.25 vs. 32.75 and 5'5 (any more than it does if you are 24.5 vs. 25.5 BMI), and in the UK I think they use a one-size fits all measurement (31.5) as the indicator of risk, which just shows that it's not that precise a measurement. One study simply looked at the one-half of height as a cut-off--the broader point is that it's more dangerous to carry weight around your middle than on your hips and thighs and rear and bust, as it is likely to be indicative of visceral fat. (In theory you can get tested to see how much visceral fat you in fact do have--I did a DXA, so have done that.)
All that aside, to the OP, I wouldn't worry much about others saying you don't need to lose more, as fat around the middle can be easy to hide depending on how you dress, so you know more about whether you have fat to lose than others will. Use your own judgment. When people tell me I don't need to lose more I just smile and say thanks and do what I want to do.
(My doctor said I don't need to lose for health reasons, but I'd still rather have a lower body fat percentage and see if I can get rid of some of the remaining fat around my middle.)
Thank you so much for taking the time to post. It's all really useful
I feel very depressed after posting this and reading the very honest responses but it had to be faced. I thought that my last stone was for vanity and not that important, I now realise I was wrong and I have to an extent been hiding from my increased risk waist. Thanks all. Painful but useful.
Just use it as extra motivation. Like I said above, I tend to be an apple too, and it's just added incentive to be slimmer than I might otherwise, since I can tell myself it's not just vanity (although it's that too!). Good luck! ;-)0 -
Need2Exerc1se wrote: »SingRunTing wrote: »Here is a picture of where different measurements fall on the two sexes (at least for sewing purposes):
This is for sewing. NOT for medical purposes.YOUR HIP WIDTH AFFECTS YOUR WAIST WIDTH FOR THE BAZILLIONTH TIME. having wide hips does not put you at risk. having excess fat on your waist does. the measurement of your waist does not all include excess fat and the baseline can be larger for people with wider hips. that's why you can't just take this one number and compare it to your height. you should also compare it to your hips. that's why i view the waist hip ratio to be better.
Okay look, believe whatever you want. I'm done. Denial is more than just a river in Egypt.
dude, 106 pounds. i don't need to be in denial about anything. this rule just doesn't make much sense since it ignores hip measurement.
Hip measurement is irrelevant. It's not a "rule", it's a health marker based on health data. Do you seriously not know how medical recommendations and disease risk factors work?
well, then it's a health marker that is too simplistic and innacurate in many cases just like bmi is.
How can a health risk marker be inaccurate? And yes, they are usually simplistic by nature.0 -
Need2Exerc1se wrote: »Need2Exerc1se wrote: »SingRunTing wrote: »Here is a picture of where different measurements fall on the two sexes (at least for sewing purposes):
This is for sewing. NOT for medical purposes.YOUR HIP WIDTH AFFECTS YOUR WAIST WIDTH FOR THE BAZILLIONTH TIME. having wide hips does not put you at risk. having excess fat on your waist does. the measurement of your waist does not all include excess fat and the baseline can be larger for people with wider hips. that's why you can't just take this one number and compare it to your height. you should also compare it to your hips. that's why i view the waist hip ratio to be better.
Okay look, believe whatever you want. I'm done. Denial is more than just a river in Egypt.
dude, 106 pounds. i don't need to be in denial about anything. this rule just doesn't make much sense since it ignores hip measurement.
Hip measurement is irrelevant. It's not a "rule", it's a health marker based on health data. Do you seriously not know how medical recommendations and disease risk factors work?
well, then it's a health marker that is too simplistic and innacurate in many cases just like bmi is.
How can a health risk marker be inaccurate? And yes, they are usually simplistic by nature.
they don't actually indicate a health risk for some people.0 -
I have always started out with the tape measure at the belly button, then I would bend slightly side to side and shimmy the tape so it is where I bend. My natural waist is about 3/4" above my belly button.0
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Need2Exerc1se wrote: »Need2Exerc1se wrote: »SingRunTing wrote: »Here is a picture of where different measurements fall on the two sexes (at least for sewing purposes):
This is for sewing. NOT for medical purposes.YOUR HIP WIDTH AFFECTS YOUR WAIST WIDTH FOR THE BAZILLIONTH TIME. having wide hips does not put you at risk. having excess fat on your waist does. the measurement of your waist does not all include excess fat and the baseline can be larger for people with wider hips. that's why you can't just take this one number and compare it to your height. you should also compare it to your hips. that's why i view the waist hip ratio to be better.
Okay look, believe whatever you want. I'm done. Denial is more than just a river in Egypt.
dude, 106 pounds. i don't need to be in denial about anything. this rule just doesn't make much sense since it ignores hip measurement.
Hip measurement is irrelevant. It's not a "rule", it's a health marker based on health data. Do you seriously not know how medical recommendations and disease risk factors work?
well, then it's a health marker that is too simplistic and innacurate in many cases just like bmi is.
How can a health risk marker be inaccurate? And yes, they are usually simplistic by nature.
they don't actually indicate a health risk for some people.
I don't mean to sound rude, but I think you need to find a dictionary and look up the word risk.0 -
Need2Exerc1se wrote: »Need2Exerc1se wrote: »Need2Exerc1se wrote: »SingRunTing wrote: »Here is a picture of where different measurements fall on the two sexes (at least for sewing purposes):
This is for sewing. NOT for medical purposes.YOUR HIP WIDTH AFFECTS YOUR WAIST WIDTH FOR THE BAZILLIONTH TIME. having wide hips does not put you at risk. having excess fat on your waist does. the measurement of your waist does not all include excess fat and the baseline can be larger for people with wider hips. that's why you can't just take this one number and compare it to your height. you should also compare it to your hips. that's why i view the waist hip ratio to be better.
Okay look, believe whatever you want. I'm done. Denial is more than just a river in Egypt.
dude, 106 pounds. i don't need to be in denial about anything. this rule just doesn't make much sense since it ignores hip measurement.
Hip measurement is irrelevant. It's not a "rule", it's a health marker based on health data. Do you seriously not know how medical recommendations and disease risk factors work?
well, then it's a health marker that is too simplistic and innacurate in many cases just like bmi is.
How can a health risk marker be inaccurate? And yes, they are usually simplistic by nature.
they don't actually indicate a health risk for some people.
I don't mean to sound rude, but I think you need to find a dictionary and look up the word risk.
whenever someone starts off a sentence like that, it always means they are saying something rude. just own it.0 -
mamapeach910 wrote: »Seamstresses must have consistent waist measurements to make clothes fit their customers' bodies. The way they find a person's waist is to have them bend sideways and measure at the bend point. This point doesn't move over time with weight fluctuations and it doesn't matter where your belly button sits or where you carry your weight. It also doesn't matter if this is the biggest or smallest body circumference since you're establishing a baseline with the first measurement, then tracking from there.
That's what I've always measured... the bend point. I must be a freak, because that's where my belly button is too. It happens to be the smallest point for me, but I have an hourglass figure (a large one, but still...), so I'm wondering how much body type plays into all the confusion?
No, I think that's much more common than not, it's just not the only possibility. What I was talking about tends to occur if you are on the shorter side and have proportionally long legs and a high waist. The hipbones go up high (and in my case aren't that wide). In any case, you can see if you have excess fat or not, which is really what the waist test is measuring. (I believe I have excess fat there that should go, even though I pass the waist test just fine, but whether it will or not without me getting thinner than I like elsewhere, I dunno, since I can see my ribs at this point. But I know it's not a health concern based on sources better than the waist test anyway, since I've had a DXA.)
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Need2Exerc1se wrote: »Need2Exerc1se wrote: »Need2Exerc1se wrote: »SingRunTing wrote: »Here is a picture of where different measurements fall on the two sexes (at least for sewing purposes):
This is for sewing. NOT for medical purposes.YOUR HIP WIDTH AFFECTS YOUR WAIST WIDTH FOR THE BAZILLIONTH TIME. having wide hips does not put you at risk. having excess fat on your waist does. the measurement of your waist does not all include excess fat and the baseline can be larger for people with wider hips. that's why you can't just take this one number and compare it to your height. you should also compare it to your hips. that's why i view the waist hip ratio to be better.
Okay look, believe whatever you want. I'm done. Denial is more than just a river in Egypt.
dude, 106 pounds. i don't need to be in denial about anything. this rule just doesn't make much sense since it ignores hip measurement.
Hip measurement is irrelevant. It's not a "rule", it's a health marker based on health data. Do you seriously not know how medical recommendations and disease risk factors work?
well, then it's a health marker that is too simplistic and innacurate in many cases just like bmi is.
How can a health risk marker be inaccurate? And yes, they are usually simplistic by nature.
they don't actually indicate a health risk for some people.
I don't mean to sound rude, but I think you need to find a dictionary and look up the word risk.
whenever someone starts off a sentence like that, it always means they are saying something rude. just own it.
I wasn't trying to be rude, though I knew saying that would seem so. It's clear that you are confused as to what health risk actually means. Not getting whatever condition you are/were at risk for does not mean you didn't/dont have the risk.0 -
Need2Exerc1se wrote: »Need2Exerc1se wrote: »Need2Exerc1se wrote: »Need2Exerc1se wrote: »SingRunTing wrote: »Here is a picture of where different measurements fall on the two sexes (at least for sewing purposes):
This is for sewing. NOT for medical purposes.YOUR HIP WIDTH AFFECTS YOUR WAIST WIDTH FOR THE BAZILLIONTH TIME. having wide hips does not put you at risk. having excess fat on your waist does. the measurement of your waist does not all include excess fat and the baseline can be larger for people with wider hips. that's why you can't just take this one number and compare it to your height. you should also compare it to your hips. that's why i view the waist hip ratio to be better.
Okay look, believe whatever you want. I'm done. Denial is more than just a river in Egypt.
dude, 106 pounds. i don't need to be in denial about anything. this rule just doesn't make much sense since it ignores hip measurement.
Hip measurement is irrelevant. It's not a "rule", it's a health marker based on health data. Do you seriously not know how medical recommendations and disease risk factors work?
well, then it's a health marker that is too simplistic and innacurate in many cases just like bmi is.
How can a health risk marker be inaccurate? And yes, they are usually simplistic by nature.
they don't actually indicate a health risk for some people.
I don't mean to sound rude, but I think you need to find a dictionary and look up the word risk.
whenever someone starts off a sentence like that, it always means they are saying something rude. just own it.
I wasn't trying to be rude, though I knew saying that would seem so. It's clear that you are confused as to what health risk actually means. Not getting whatever condition you are/were at risk for does not mean you didn't/dont have the risk.
my point is, you might not have the risk at all if bone structure is making that area larger. i'm not confused at all.
if you are wide, but flat, you probably don't have much excess fat there, but your measurements would be bigger than someone who starts off narrow.0 -
Need2Exerc1se wrote: »Need2Exerc1se wrote: »Need2Exerc1se wrote: »Need2Exerc1se wrote: »SingRunTing wrote: »Here is a picture of where different measurements fall on the two sexes (at least for sewing purposes):
This is for sewing. NOT for medical purposes.YOUR HIP WIDTH AFFECTS YOUR WAIST WIDTH FOR THE BAZILLIONTH TIME. having wide hips does not put you at risk. having excess fat on your waist does. the measurement of your waist does not all include excess fat and the baseline can be larger for people with wider hips. that's why you can't just take this one number and compare it to your height. you should also compare it to your hips. that's why i view the waist hip ratio to be better.
Okay look, believe whatever you want. I'm done. Denial is more than just a river in Egypt.
dude, 106 pounds. i don't need to be in denial about anything. this rule just doesn't make much sense since it ignores hip measurement.
Hip measurement is irrelevant. It's not a "rule", it's a health marker based on health data. Do you seriously not know how medical recommendations and disease risk factors work?
well, then it's a health marker that is too simplistic and innacurate in many cases just like bmi is.
How can a health risk marker be inaccurate? And yes, they are usually simplistic by nature.
they don't actually indicate a health risk for some people.
I don't mean to sound rude, but I think you need to find a dictionary and look up the word risk.
whenever someone starts off a sentence like that, it always means they are saying something rude. just own it.
I wasn't trying to be rude, though I knew saying that would seem so. It's clear that you are confused as to what health risk actually means. Not getting whatever condition you are/were at risk for does not mean you didn't/dont have the risk.
my point is, you might not have the risk at all if bone structure is making that area larger. i'm not confused at all.
if you are wide, but flat, you probably don't have much excess fat there, but your measurements would be bigger than someone who starts off narrow.
If you are wide but flat and have minimal excess fat, you aren't going to fall into the category of being at higher risk for health disease, etc. For one thing, the wider you are the flatter you'd be if you are, indeed, at a healthy weight. People who have android fat distribution are quite a bit thicker than people who do not. It's not a matter of a fraction of an inch. Look in my profile and you will see a picture of me wearing a brown sweater and jeans. From the front you can see that I don't have much of a waist but I look fairly average. From the side you can clearly see that I am very thick (not in the "thick ladies are attractive" way, just literally thick.) That's the kind of waist measurement this indicator is dealing with.
You have to use good judgement when looking at this type of health indicator--use common sense and realize that it is an indicator, not a diagnostic tool.
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Because it crossed the line you tight-rope walk along. I've been very open and extremely polite in this thread, perhaps too polite. But I won't be called thick - either directly or indirectly. Especially by someone who can't even be bothered to read what I wrote.herrspoons wrote: »
.Wow, some properly thick people here, and I'm not talking about their physical appearance. If you are fat, you measure where the fat is at, i.e. the widest point. If you aren't fat, it doesn't matter where you measure, since none of this applies to you. Your waist could resemble a cartoon figure that was hit by a steamroller; if there is no fat there, you are not in the risk group regarding fat. Comprende?
And for the record, if your belly jiggles like a bowl full of jelly, then you are fat. If all you have is rock hard abs or maybe some loose skin and some soft bits, you are not fat.
I have reported this.
What for? It's on the money.
And as it is far too stressful to sift the kind, helpful advice from the advice of those who enjoy loading every sentence with dripping contempt, and tearing down new posters for the entertainment of onlookers and their own gratification, I certainly won't be posting here again. Which is a shame as I had a lot of support to give.
An interesting forum ruined by a few vile and spiteful people.0 -
OP if you haven't left yet, I think you are beautiful in your photo. I would fall down in gratitude to be your size, even though you might have a few lbs left to lose.0
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It ignores hip measurement because large hip size...whether due to bones or fat...is not dangerous to your health. Just like chubby thighs aren't dangerous. Abdominal fat...specifically visceral fat...is dangerous. This is the fat that smothers your organs and is metabolically active and produces various hormones that can screw up your system.dude, 106 pounds. i don't need to be in denial about anything. this rule just doesn't make much sense since it ignores hip measurement.
Waist size is not dependent on hip size. You can have extremely wide or very narrow hips and still have a tiny waist....or a very large waist. I have seen MANY women with very wide hips who still have a tiny waist...the curve in is very dramatic on them while narrower hipped women will just be straighter. I'm not sure why you don't understand this.
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MoiAussi93 wrote: »
It ignores hip measurement because large hip size...whether due to bones or fat...is not dangerous to your health. Just like chubby thighs aren't dangerous. Abdominal fat...specifically visceral fat...is dangerous. This is the fat that smothers your organs and is metabolically active and produces various hormones that can screw up your system.dude, 106 pounds. i don't need to be in denial about anything. this rule just doesn't make much sense since it ignores hip measurement.
Waist size is not dependent on hip size. You can have extremely wide or very narrow hips and still have a tiny waist....or a very large waist. I have seen MANY women with very wide hips who still have a tiny waist...the curve in is very dramatic on them while narrower hipped women will just be straighter. I'm not sure why you don't understand this.
I understand this COMPLETELY. Doesn't take away from the fact that hip size does influence waist size if you're counting the waist as the part right above your hips. I'm not sure why YOU don't understand this.-1 -
MoiAussi93 wrote: »I'm not sure why you don't understand this.
Don't bother. I tried for three pages of this thread. She doesn't want to understand it.0 -
MoiAussi93 wrote: »I'm not sure why you don't understand this.
Don't bother. I tried for three pages of this thread. She doesn't want to understand it.
No, I do understand it completely.0 -
Because it crossed the line you tight-rope walk along. I've been very open and extremely polite in this thread, perhaps too polite. But I won't be called thick - either directly or indirectly. Especially by someone who can't even be bothered to read what I wrote.herrspoons wrote: »
.Wow, some properly thick people here, and I'm not talking about their physical appearance. If you are fat, you measure where the fat is at, i.e. the widest point. If you aren't fat, it doesn't matter where you measure, since none of this applies to you. Your waist could resemble a cartoon figure that was hit by a steamroller; if there is no fat there, you are not in the risk group regarding fat. Comprende?
And for the record, if your belly jiggles like a bowl full of jelly, then you are fat. If all you have is rock hard abs or maybe some loose skin and some soft bits, you are not fat.
I have reported this.
What for? It's on the money.
And as it is far too stressful to sift the kind, helpful advice from the advice of those who enjoy loading every sentence with dripping contempt, and tearing down new posters for the entertainment of onlookers and their own gratification, I certainly won't be posting here again. Which is a shame as I had a lot of support to give.
An interesting forum ruined by a few vile and spiteful people.
Unfortunately, this how many many people behave behind their computer screens and their keyboards.
I will put it like this... people just lack tact and politeness. OP I hope that you were able to get some good references on what you need to do to get your measurements down.0
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