Beyond BMI: How Waist Circumference and Waist-to-Hip Ratio Enhance Cardiovascular Risk Prediction

Traditional BMI categories can misclassify cardiovascular risk due to lack of body composition detail.
Measures of central adiposity — waist circumference (WC) and waist-to-hip ratio (WHR) — reclassify CVD risk across normal weight, overweight, and obesity categories.
Individuals with normal BMI but elevated WC or WHR experience 15% to 50% higher risk of various cardiovascular outcomes.
Elevated WC or WHR in obesity identifies a substantial proportion of attributable cardiovascular risk, particularly for heart failure and atrial fibrillation.

Specialty calculators

For clinical reference; use professional judgment.