Watch your waistline if you want to live longer.

For most of you reading this, its no News that fat buildup around your waist can double your risk of early death. And this fact doesn’t change even if you are in the normal weight range as per the standard weight and height chart.

A recent study that was conducted across Europe has revealed that carrying those extra pounds around your waist is putting you at more health risk, even though you may not qualify to be overweight.

The latest approach takes into account two things, first one being hip to waste ratio and the second one being BMI that is body mass index to determine your health status. And if your waist measurements are more than your hip measurements and your BMI is above 25, you fall in the high risk category. The hip to waste ratio is arrived at by dividing the waste measurement by that of the hips. The lower the ratio, the better it is.

Carrying a few extra pounds around your waist is associated with premature death because these fatty tissues surrounding your waist produce metabolically active compounds along with certain types of hormones which can be dangerous. These hormones and compounds can work as triggers to chronic diseases development, especially heart and cancer related diseases. Also, with the added weight around your waist, your heart has to exert more and thus its mechanism begins to fail over time.

Consequently, you need to shift your target from the old approach, of being in the right weight range, to getting your body into the right proportions so that the distribution of body fat is in more even throughout your body. Another problem with a bigger waistline is that your back bone remains strained all the time, leaving you more prone to back problems with the passing of years.

So, keeping track of your weight is just not enough and you must take measurements of your hips and waist on a regular basis and strive for a good hip to waste ratio.