peas at a party

I was on this weight loss journey; the pounds were departing for destinations unknown; it was actually kind of fun.  But there was that nagging question:  where exactly am I going?

With a “healthy” body mass index or BMI for my height that ranges almost 40 pounds, how would I know when this journey is over and I’ve arrived?  In other words, what’s my “ideal”?  The standard advice tells me to look at

• My frame size–not my height, BMI already takes that into account–but am I ”big-boned” or do I have a small frame?
• My life style–what weight can I and will I maintain on a steady basis?
• My conditioning–am I a total couch potato or do I have the muscle tone of a professional athlete?

These are all helpful, but research reported last week from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas may be more critical in determining personal weight goals.  It turns out that waist measurement alone is a key indicator of heart disease, and a better single indicator than BMI alone.  The role of visceral fat, that fat that we carry inside and around our middles, is much more important to our health than overall weight and body fat.

So what’s ideal?  In the BBC report on the research, the British Heart Foundation recommends that “people consider their body shape as well as their weight.”  A waist measurement of 32″ or over for women (or 37″ for men) was found to represent a significantly elevated health risk.  This is about 3″ smaller than previously thought, and height is not a factor.  They found that the smaller the waist the fewer early signs of calcium deposits and clogged arteries.

Accepted wisdom has been that a healthy waist-to-hips ratio is .80 for women and 1.00 for men.  But this research seems to point to an absolute maximum for a healthy girth.

It’s interesting that the 1950’s advise was that your waist should never be more than half your height.  This works out to be 32″ for the average height woman in the U.S., who is 5′4″.  Just for reference, a 32″ waist translates into a size 12 at the Gap and Lands End or a size 14 at Coldwater Creek or JC Penney.

Checking out my BMI–here’s the calculator from the National Institutes for Health–may pinpoint my zip code, but it’s the tape measure that knows my street address.