Life At Slow-Mo

I learned a few years ago of a simple method to gauge your health. It is called the waist-hip ratio (WHR). All you need to do is measure the circumference of your waist and your hip. Then divide the size of your waist with that of your hip. Let’s say your waist is 93 cm and your hip is 96 cm. Divide 93 with 96, and you get a waist-hip ratio of 0.96 (rounded down).

What does your WHR say about your health? The higher the number means you are carrying more excess fat in your abdominal cavity. That puts you at a higher risk of developing conditions that are related to being overweight, such as heart disease and type-2 diabetes.

World Health Organization (WHO) classifies the risk affected by health conditions according to WHR as follows:

Health Risk	Men	Women
Low	0.95 or lower	0.80 or lower
Moderate	0.96-1.0	0.81-0.85
High	1.0 or higher	0.86 or higher

The first time I came across WHR was 13 years ago when I took a medical check-up required by the life insurance I was applying for. After I completed all the blood works and interviews, the doctor took me to a private room. She then proceeded to take a measuring tape, just like the one used by tailors to measure you to make a new suit, and measured my waist and hip circumferences.

It was so simple that it was hard for me to believe that doctors actually use that as one method to gauge a patient’s health risks. This works for all kinds of body types. You are fine as long as you keep your waist smaller than your hip, and you are screwed if you don’t.

This is how to do a correct waist-to-hip ratio measurement.

For my intermittent fasting, at first, I used the measuring tape in the image below. I got it many years ago from a certain food supplement brand. It was OK at first, but later it becomes problematic when I had to decide where the end should fall. Is it 120 or 120.5? Should I tighten or loosen the tape?

When I went to a weight loss clinic, they also measured my waist to check my progress. But they used a clever device illustrated by the image below.

The waist ruler works just like measuring tape. The difference is that the tape is housed in a box that has a spring to keep a fixed tension on the tape. You can hook the end of the tape back to the box. This way, you don’t have to rely on your feelings to determine when to tighten or loosen the tape. When the tape rests comfortably around your waist (or hip), you can then read the measurement. I could not find a how-to-use video in English, but I hope this video can give you an idea of how to use this.

It is pretty cheap. I got it from an online store in Jakarta for about IDR 26,000 or less than USD 2.00 (click here for USD rate), including shipping.

Maybe you’re not in any weight loss program right now, but you can still use this simple but important tool to take a quick health assessment.