Waist-Hip Ratio Calculator

WHR: Waist-to-Hip Ratio

The WHR (Waist-to-Hip Ratio) comes from a single division: WHR = waist / hip, with both numbers in centimeters. You take the waist at the midpoint between the lowest rib and the iliac crest (some protocols use the navel instead), and the hip at the widest part of the gluteal region. The WHO flags rising cardiovascular risk once the ratio passes 0.90 for men and 0.85 for women. Take a woman with a 78 cm waist and a 98 cm hip: 78/98 gives 0.80, which sits in the low-risk band. Where BMI falls short, WHR picks up visceral fat, the kind packed around the organs that does more metabolic damage than the fat under the skin. That difference shows up as body shape too. An "apple" build, with a high ratio, tends to mean more metabolic trouble than a "pear" build, where the fat settles in the hips and thighs.

Applications and context

You'll find WHR in cardiovascular risk assessment, in metabolic syndrome screening under the ATP-III criteria, in pre-bariatric workups, in clinical nutrition and in fitness testing. It rounds out BMI by showing where the fat is, and that matters: two people can share a BMI yet face very different risk depending on how their fat is distributed. The measurement costs almost nothing, takes a moment, needs only a tape measure, and any trained professional can repeat it and get the same number.

FAQ

WHR or BMI — which is better? Neither, really; they answer different questions. BMI estimates total mass against height, while WHR tells you where that mass is sitting. Read them side by side and you get the fuller picture.

Why is visceral fat more dangerous? It wraps around the organs and dumps inflammatory cytokines and free fatty acids straight into the portal vein. That pushes up insulin resistance and dyslipidemia, and with them cardiovascular risk.

Does the WHR cutoff change with ethnicity? It does. Some guidelines set lower thresholds for Asian populations, around 0.90/0.80, because visceral fat tends to be higher there even at lower BMIs.