How much you gain depends on your weight before pregnancy. Lean more about healthy weight gain in pregnancy. Overweight and obesity is a public health issue and major risk factor for ill-health, including heart disease, type 2 diabetes and some cancers.

Fat is stored throughout the body and that it produces chemicals and hormones which can be toxic to the body. View our facts on toxic fate to find out more. Read more on LiveLighter website. Being a healthy weight is important to prevent liver disease and, if you already have disease, to prevent it getting worse.

If you have fatty liver disease, one of the best things you can do is lose weight. Read more on Liver Foundation website. Read more on Ausmed Education website.

Read more on Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute website. Read more on RACGP - The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners website. Reproduced with permission from The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners.

Diabetes is a group of disorders and the 10th leading cause of deaths in Australia.. Authors' conclusions: There is moderate quality evidence that aquatic exercise may have small, short-term, and clinically relevant effects on patient-reported pain, disability, and QoL in people with knee and hip OA.

Read more on Cochrane Australia website. Every woman of reproductive age should be considered for preconception care C. Unplanned weight loss occurs when a client experiences an unintentional reduction in body mass. According to the National Aged Care Mandatory Quality Indicator Program, there are two categories of unplanned weight loss: significant unplanned weight loss and consecutive unplanned weight loss.

Authors' conclusions: The evidence suggests that KDs could demonstrate effectiveness in children with drug-resistant epilepsy, however, the evidence for the use of KDs in adults remains uncertain. Read more on Cancer Council Australia website. Healthdirect Australia is not responsible for the content and advertising on the external website you are now entering.

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Please check and try again Agree to Terms required. Talk to your GP about local services to help you move more and eat well. And tell your family and friends about your action plan — you could even get them to join in. Doing it with someone else can help you both stay motivated.

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Skip to main navigation Skip to content. Breadcrumb Home Diabetes the basics Types of diabetes Type 2 Waist measurement. Save for later Page saved!

You can go back to this later in your Diabetes and Me Close. Diabetes risk and waist measurement. You might be wondering what waist measurement has to do with your risk of type 2 diabetes.

BMI is a useful measure of overweight and obesity. It is calculated from your height and weight. BMI is an estimate of body fat and a good gauge of your risk for diseases that can occur with more body fat.

The higher your BMI, the higher your risk for certain diseases such as heart disease, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, gallstones, breathing problems, and certain cancers. Although BMI can be used for most men and women, it does have some limits:.

Use the BMI Calculator or BMI Tables to estimate your body fat. The BMI score means the following:. Measuring waist circumference helps screen for possible health risks that come with overweight and obesity.

This risk goes up with a waist size that is greater than 35 inches for women or greater than 40 inches for men. To correctly measure your waist, stand and place a tape measure around your middle, just above your hipbones.

Measure your waist just after you breathe out. The table Risks of Obesity-Associated Diseases by BMI and Waist Circumference provides you with an idea of whether your BMI combined with your waist circumference increases your risk for developing obesity-associated diseases or conditions.

Along with being overweight or obese, the following conditions will put you at greater risk for heart disease and other conditions:. For people who are considered obese BMI greater than or equal to 30 or those who are overweight BMI of 25 to

The guideline highlights the importance of healthcare professionals asking permission before any discussions with people that are linked to being overweight, obese or central adiposity, and to ensure they do so in a sensitive and positive manner. Waist-to-height ratio is a simple, easy to use measure that identifies people who are at increased health risk and would benefit from weight management support to improve their health.

A waist measurement of more than half of a person's height, is an indication of greater risk. Young people should be encouraged to seek advice about weight management, and sensitively supported to lower their risk of developing these conditions, and to improve overall health and wellbeing.

A consultation on the proposed recommendations is now taking place until Wednesday, 11 May People can have their say via nice.

de Koning L, Merchant AT, Pogue J, Anand SS. Waist circumference and waist-to-hip ratio as predictors of cardiovascular events: meta-regression analysis of prospective studies.

Heart J. Vazquez G, Duval S, Jacobs DR, Jr. Qiao Q, Nyamdorj R. Is the association of type II diabetes with waist circumference or waist-to-hip ratio stronger than that with body mass index?

Eur J Clin Nutr. Grundy SM, Cleeman JI, Daniels SR, et al. International Diabetes Federation. The IDF consensus worldwide definition of metabolic syndrome.

World Health Organization. Definition, Diagnosis, and Classification of Diabetes Mellitus and its Complications: Report of a WHO Consultation. Part I: Diagnosis and Classification of Diabetes Mellitus. Geneva: World Health Organization. Assessed on January 26, Skip to content Obesity Prevention Source.

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How Abdominal Fat Increases Disease Risk More than 60 years ago, the French physician Jean Vague observed that people with larger waists had a higher risk of premature cardiovascular disease and death than people who had trimmer waists or carried more of their weight around their hips and thighs.

The two most common ways to measure abdominal obesity are waist circumference and waist size compared to hip size, also known as the waist-to-hip ratio. Several organizations have defined cut-points for abdominal obesity around one or both of these measurements, with different cut-points for men and women see table.

After 16 years, women who had reported the highest waist sizes — 35 inches or higher —had nearly double the risk of dying from heart disease, compared to women who had reported the lowest waist sizes less than 28 inches. The risks increased steadily with every added inch around the waist.

In , for example, a combined analysis of fifteen prospective cohort studies found that waist-to-hip ratio and waist circumference were both associated with CVD risk and were no different from each other in predicting CVD risk.