Does your body shape increase your risk of coronary heart disease?

The way fat is distributed around your body affects yourt risk of coronary heart disease.

People who carry too much weight around their middle, have a greater risk of

Coronary Heart Disese

High Blood Pressure

Diabetes.

To find out if your body shape is increasing your risk of Coronary Heart Disease, is by measuring your waist.

Find the bottom of your ribs and the top of your hips.

Measure around your middle at a point midway between these two
.
For most people this will be the level of the tummy button.

Your Health is at risk if you have a waist size of

MEN  over 94cm(37inches)

FEMALE  over 80cm (32inches)

Your Health is at high risk if you have a waist size of

MEN over 102cm(40inches)

FEMALE over 88cm (35inches)


If you are at risk or high risk it is important to make life style changes, exercise, diet.

Waist to Hip ratio

This is another way to find out your risk.

Divide your waist measurement by your hip measurement

For example

Waist measurement 85cm (33.5inches)
Hip measurement 100cm (39.5inches)

This gives a Waist to Hip ratio of 85 divided by 100
This equals 0.85

For a Man high risk is greater than 1
For a female high risk is greater than 0.85

If you need to lose weight or reduce your waist size

Lose Weight by

Reduce calorie intake by reducing fat and sugar in diet.
Increase exercise.

Try not to lose weight too quickly.

Lose 1 or 2 pounds per week, this is more healthy and your most likely to keep the weight off for good.

People who follow for example a weight loss regime of target 10 to 20 pounds weight loss, by losing 1 to 2 pounds per week usually achieve their target.

If you are very overweight then losing even 20 pounds will be greatly beneficial

Rule of thumb   lose weight slowly and steadily