Big hips don’t lie

March 31, 2012

AUSTRALIA – People with big hips and a small waist have the lowest risk for premature death, and people with small hips and a large waist are at the highest risk, according to a study published in the International Journal of Epidemiology.

Evaluating nearly 8,000 Mauritians, the study is the first to link obesity to mortality in a South Asian population. It demonstrated that the effect of obesity on the risk of premature death is seriously underestimated unless a person’s hip circumference is taken into account.

Evidence shows that the fat tissue in the hip has quite different metabolic properties in comparison with fat tissue around the waist.

“We knew that higher hip circumference was protective against metabolic diseases such as diabetes as well as death. However, we did not know that taking waist and hip circumference into account would reveal such a powerful association between obesity and mortality,” said lead author Dr. Adrian Cameron from Deakin University.

Typically, waist-to-hip ratio and waist circumference are used by doctors as a reference for obesity. Here, the researchers studied how hip circumference independently influenced obesity and mortality, allowing them to isolate the negative health risks of central (abdominal) obesity which is measured by the waist circumference.

Health Care Asia
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