Waist to hip ratio calculator
A growing body of evidence favours waist-to-height ratio over waist-to-hip, for one practical reason: it has a single memorable threshold that works for both sexes and most ethnicities; keep your waist under half your height. It also needs one fewer measurement, and the hip measurement is the one people take least consistently.
A screening ratio, not a diagnosis. Discuss anything concerning with a doctor rather than acting on a number.
Waist-to-hip ratio is waist circumference divided by hip circumference. The WHO treats above 0.90 for men and above 0.85 for women as abdominal obesity, which carries more metabolic risk than the same weight distributed elsewhere.
How to measure waist to hip ratio
Where fat sits matters as much as how much there is. Visceral fat around the organs is metabolically active in a way that subcutaneous fat on the hips and thighs is not, which is why two people with identical BMI can carry very different risk. That is the entire reason this ratio exists alongside BMI rather than instead of it — and why the waist measurement on its own, or relative to height, has become the more commonly recommended screen.
Questions
Below 0.90 for men and below 0.85 for women, by WHO thresholds.
At the narrowest point, or midway between the lowest rib and the top of the hip bone. Be consistent between measurements.
Apple means fat carried around the middle, pear around the hips and thighs. Apple carries more metabolic risk.
Many researchers think so. It uses one threshold; keep your waist under half your height — that works across sexes and populations.
You can lose fat, but where your body stores it is largely genetic. Losing visceral fat does happen fairly early in weight loss.