A waist-to-height ratio under 50 percent is generally considered "normal." Tthe greater your abdominal girth relative to your height, the fatter you are, and, consequently, the greater your risk of cardiovascular disease.

Also the WHtR gives a more accurate assesment of health for serious athletes, especially body builders, who have a higher percentage of muscle and a lower percentage of body fat, and for women who have a "pear" rather than an "apple" shape.

Insurance companies are good at making money because their actuaries are very knowledgeable in determining risks. Why do you think they insist on knowing your height and waist measurements as part of your insurance physical?

Increased abdominal girth is a strong and useful indicator of:

• hyperinsulinemia
• pre-diabetes
• diabetes and, consequently
• cardiovascular disease.

Actually, it can forecast a cardiologist in your future as the bulging stomach is also associated with a higher risk of high blood pressure and even certain forms of cancer.

“Hundreds of studies have led to the conclusion that any fat [in excess] can be problematic, but it’s much, much more dangerous when it’s accumulated in the abdomen,” said Dr Jeffrey Flier, researcher at the prestigious Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston.

How big is big?

Unfortunately beer bellies usually come with their close relatives - love handles. Those wobbly stubborn pieces of fat on the sides of the waist. No matter what you do, they don’t seem to go away.

However, the fat that women accumulate on hips and thighs is not dangerous to health—but it’s almost impossible to lose. The fat that men accumulate on stomachs is much more dangerous to health—but easier to get rid off.

How? A beer belly could have a lot to do with beer, which - like most alcohol - is oozing with calories. But that’s only part of the story. Researchers have found that apart from adding calories to the diet, alcohol also prevents the burning of fat.

According to a Swiss study reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association, booze in the blood stream can slow down fat metabolism more than 30 percent. Plus, beer drinkers don’t just drink beer - they have it with chips and peanuts, all nibbling their way into the belly, making it bigger and bigger.

This comprehensive, epidemiological study, involving 2,343 randomly selected men and women aged between 35 and 79, has found those who drank small amounts of alcohol regularly had the smallest beer bellies, while sporadic but intense drinking - involving more than three to four drinks on each occasion - resulted in the biggest bellies, stomachs sagging over the belts.

The researchers collected information on how much and how often people had drunk during the past 30 days, what type of alcohol it was and whether they drank it with or without food.

What they have found is that men and women who drank infrequently but heavily had more abdominal fat than people who consumed the same amount but drank regularly. In other words, the more drinks per drinking day, the higher the abdominal measurement.

Definitely, the way we drink is as important as the amount of alcohol we consume and binge drinking is an unhealthy way of consuming alcohol. It does not mean, however, that persons with abdominal fat should start drinking.

Also the type of alcohol consumed seems to make a difference: wine drinkers had the lowest abdominal height and drinkers of spirits had the highest. And strong spirits were much more likely than beer to cause beer bellies.

It should be added that, despite their huge bellies, men often have very thin arms and legs, Unfortunately, the abdominal fat causing the problem in this condition lies not only under the skin, but also in the internal cavity of the abdomen itself.

The study was funded by a grant from the U.S. National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.

Source: Alcohol Drinking Patterns Differentially Affect Central Adiposity as Measured by Abdominal Height in Women and Men. The American Society for Nutritional Sciences J. Nutr. 133:2655-2662, August 2003.

Obesity has not been hyped. In fact, it should be defined as a disease - a real public health crisis.

Middle-aged people who are obese - or grossly overweight - are over 40 percent more likely than normal-weight people to die of heart disease. They are also four times as likely to be hospitalized for heart disease.

As pointed out by researchers and obesity experts, fat tissue is not like an inert storage depot. It is a very dynamic organ that is actually producing hormones and chemical messengers. And even without elevating blood pressure or cholesterol, these substances can

• damage blood vessels
• increase the risk of blood clots and
• cause insulin resistance that makes people prone to diabetes.

In other words, being too fat causes cardiovascular problems and excess weight alone is an independent risk factor for heart attacks, strokes and diabetes.