BY DR. DAVE HEPBURN | APRIL 20, 2011
I think I’m a watermelon
“Good to see you too, doctor, but, umm, why are you wrapping your arms around my waist?”
“Actually I can’t quite, so I’m going to attach this measuring tape to the post and have you spin around.”
“What does it read?”
“46.”
”Which is what in inches?”
“Okay, now I have to measure your hip to waist ratio. That would be both hips Bloggins.”
“Whoa! I’ll bring flowers next time, doc.”
Forget those passé BMI numbers. It turns out those calculations were useless, corrupt and irrelevant, the Chicago Cubs of measurements. Yesterday’s mistake. By taking the square root of your height minus your weight on Thursday and multiplying it by the third power of the log of your dandruff count you could determine your BMI (Body Mass Icecream) This was apparently a predictor of your cardiac risk. One of my small Asian buddies, Vietnamese by ethnicity, would taunt me by sneaking up behind me as though I was Peter Sellers and reach around me to start chest compressions. Even though he had a bit of a Sake gut himself, his BMI was considered low and he would tend to laud it over us Caucasian behemoths. If I were bigger and had a meaner streak I would’ve sat on the little pest. Meanwhile my rugby player patients had BMI’s that according to the charts meant that they should have had 17 heart attacks, 34 strokes and sung the lead for Aida. Fact is that they didn’t have an ounce of fat on them outside of their skulls. A BMI does not differentiate muscle from fat from bone.
The waist-hip ratio has now been determined to be the most accurate predictor of our risk of having the Big Mac Attack, and now for scientific reasons.
Big bulging bellies store a nasty fat that produces nasty hormones that do nasty things to the heart. Belly fat clogs up the liver, messes up insulin regulation and changes cholesterol levels for the worse.
1. Put down this paper and go and find a measuring tape.
2. Pick up this paper to read the next instruction.
3. Take your belly girth. Quit sucking in! Take it just above your navel (after removing all lint).
4. Hmmm. Put down this paper and go and find a longer tape.
5. Okay, now try the hips. Measure about the widest part of your caboose, the part that picks up the chair when you stand up.
6. Get son’s calculator. Divide the waist by the hip.
Should you have a ratio over 0.90 for men or 0.85 for women then you are the apple-shaped. You apples get primarily waisted with your fat storage and are in some metabolic trouble. You are predisposed to diabetes, heart attack, cancer, hypertension and may end up an apple crumble. Fat around your belly means you have fat around your vital organs.
But if your ratio is less than 0.72, ie. fat predominantly in your hips, then you are pear-shaped. Those who are tragically hip with their fat storage have a difficult time shedding this type of fat even though it is safer to have fat on your hips than on your belly.
“But doc, I think I’m a watermelon.”
“You know I think you’re right, Bloggins. Here meet my little buddy from Hanoi.”
Contact Dr. Dave or read more at www.wisequacks.org.