Your body shape

This section can help you work out if your waist is a healthy size for your height.

If you have too much weight around your middle, often called an 'apple' shape, this increases your risk of developing heart disease and diabetes.

If the weight is around your hips, this is often called a 'pear' shape. Someone with an apple shape will face greater health risks than someone who has a pear shape, even if they are both overweight.

To get a clearer picture of your overall health risk, you might find it useful to check out your body shape. You can do this by plotting the size of your waist against your height on the Ashwell® shape chart.

If you have well-developed muscles, you may find that you will fall into the category of overweight on the body mass index calculator (and the height/weight chart), when in fact you may have a healthy body shape and very little fat. This guide will help you to find this out.

Ashwell shape chart

To view a larger Ashwell shape chart click here.



Check where your height/waist measurement falls:

 

brown 'Take care' area

This means you will probably have a tall thin 'chilli' type of shape. This isn't desirable for good health so you need to take care. You may need to gain weight.

 

green 'OK' area

This means you will probably have a healthy 'pear' shape, which is a healthy shape. With this type of body shape, any excess fat is stored under the skin around the bottom, hips and thighs, which is less harmful to health than having an apple shape.

amber 'Take care' area

This means you will probably have a 'pear-apple' shape, which means you should take care. Make sure you don't put on any more weight, especially if your measurements fall towards the upper end of the area.

 

red 'Action' area

This means you will probably have an 'apple' shape. With this body shape excess fat is stored deep below the skin in the stomach area, which will increase your risk of serious conditions such as heart disease, raised blood pressure, Type II diabetes and some types of cancer. Your health is likely to be at risk so speak to your GP about losing weight.