Measurements matter

One of the risk factors for cardiovascular disease that you can change is your weight, if you are currently living with obesity or overweight.

There are a few different measurements that are used by healthcare professionals to check whether you are at a healthy weight.

Waist measurement

It is not just living with overweight or obesity that can increase your risk of health problems or developing cardiovascular disease, but where you carry that weight on your body.

If you store a lot of your weight around your stomach, fat can build up around vital organs such as the liver and pancreas which means that they don't work as well.

The deep fat that is stored around your middle is known as ‘visceral’ fat and it is linked to high blood fat levels, high blood pressure and diabetes.

Visceral fat in your liver will cause it to pump out too much fat and sugar into the blood.

This increases the risk of coronary heart disease and type 2 diabetes. To understand whether your weight you carry around your waist may be an issue, the video below shows you how you can measure your waist:

What is a healthy waist size?

This depends on your sex and your ethnicity. For a healthy waist measurement you should aim to be less than:

80cm (31.5 inches)	94cm (37 inches)	90cm (35 inches)
Women	Men	Men - high risk (Black African, African Carribean, South Asian, Middle Eastern)

BMI

Body Mass Index (BMI) is a measure that uses your height and weight to work out if your weight is within a healthy range.

You can calculate your BMI by dividing your weight in kilograms (kg) by your height in metres (m) squared. You can do this online through this calculator.

The healthy BMI range for high-risk ethnicities (e.g. South Asian, African-Caribbean) is slightly different. The classifications for BMI are as follows:

Underweight	Below 18.5	Below 18.5
Classification	BMI	BMI - high risk groups
Healthy	Between 18.5 - 24.9	Between 18.5 - 22.9
Overweight	Between 25 - 29.9	Between 23 - 27.5
Obese	Over 30	Over 27.5

There are some other factors that need to be considered when using BMI as a measurement. If you have a lot of muscle then you may find yourself being classed as overweight or obese even though you are at a healthy weight, as muscle is heavier than fat.