| Body shape and your health
Most of us know that different people gain weight in different places. For many, fat goes straight to our hips and thighs, while others expand around the middle. Years ago, someone termed these two different body shapes "pears" and "apples" for obvious reasons. Find out how your body shape effects your risk of heart problems Of course, the scales don't notice how your body fat is distributed, only that you weigh a certain number of pounds. We know that too much weight puts you at risk for coronary artery disease, but does the distribution of these pounds matter to your health? Apparently it does, according to several studies showing that body shape — specifically, a large waist relative to hip size (apple) — raises the risk of diabetes, high blood pressure, and in men, heart disease. Research in the Journal of the American Medical Association finds that this apple shape also boosts the risk of heart disease in women. As part of a long-term, ongoing study following the health of hundreds of thousands of female nurses, this section of the research included more than 44,000 middle-aged women. All were free of heart disease, stroke, and cancer when the study began in 1986, when the women submitted their waist and hip measurements to the researchers. Over the next eight years, several hundred of the women had non-fatal heart attacks or fatal coronary artery disease. What the researchers found – taking into account differences in body mass and other cardiac risk factors – was that the most apple-shaped women, with waist-to-hip ratios of 0.76 or more, were at a disadvantage, as were those with waists more than 30 inches around. They had more than twice the risk of heart disease than the most pear-shaped women, or those with waist-to-hip ratios less than 0.72. Body shape affected heart risk even in women who weren't particularly overweight. It's easy enough to calculate your waist-to-hip ratio. But is there anything you can do about body shape and its effect on your risk of heart problems? First of all, your waist-to-hip ratio is, like your blood pressure and cholesterol level, another one of those numbers that you should know, understand, and watch closely. Some doctors measure it along with pulse and blood pressure. Knowing where you stand with regard to all your risk factors is your best defence.
Unfortunately, there's no magic way to lose abdominal fat other than the tried-and-tested diet and exercise. Keep your eye on the scale, because your goal should be general weight loss, not reduction of certain areas which isn't possible anyway. If you're apple shaped but not at all overweight, which is rare, you probably can't whittle your waist much. Instead, concentrate on eating healthily and exercising to reduce your risk. For most people, a decrease in total body weight will also result in a decrease in waist-to-hip ratio and waist circumference, and will therefore improve the odds against heart disease.
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