What is a healthy waist-to-height ratio?

Keep your waist to less than half your height. The published categories are: below 0.4, take care; 0.4 to 0.49, healthy central adiposity with no increased risk; 0.5 to 0.59, increased risk; 0.6 or more, further increased risk. The same 0.5 boundary applies to men and women.

How do I calculate waist-to-height ratio?

Divide your waist circumference by your height in the same unit. A 72-inch person with a 36-inch waist is 36 ÷ 72 = 0.50. A 165 cm person with an 80 cm waist is 80 ÷ 165 = 0.48. Measure midway between the bottom of the ribs and the top of the hips, breathing out naturally.

Is waist-to-height ratio better than BMI?

Across 14 countries the 0.5 boundary predicted cardiometabolic risk better than waist circumference or BMI (Browning, Hsieh and Ashwell 2010). On tape, Peter Attia says a person's BMI is less relevant to him than their eye colour, and that a waist more than 50% of height should concern you.

What waist size do the experts say is too much?

Mark Hyman and Casey Means both name the same waist circumference cutoffs on tape: under 40 inches (102 cm) for men and under 35 inches (88 cm) for women. Mary Claire Haver adds a waist-to-hip ratio under 0.7 for women.

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Waist-to-Height Ratio

One tape measure, one division, one number that predicts risk better than BMI. The published categories, and the cutoff the panel names on tape.

waist circumference ÷ height, both in the same unit. Adults with a BMI under 35, both sexes, all ethnicities, including people with high muscle mass. Not a diagnosis.

The short answer

Keep your waist under half your height. 0.4 to 0.49 is the healthy band. From 0.5 upward the risk of type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease rises, and the boundary is the same for men and women.

72 in tall, 36 in waist

36 ÷ 72 = 0.50

165 cm tall, 80 cm waist

80 ÷ 165 = 0.48

Find the bottom of your ribs and the top of your hips; measure midway between them, breathing out naturally.

Waist-to-height ratio chart

The Ashwell Shape Chart bands and the NICE category names, side by side. Find your ratio, read across.

Ratio	Shape Chart	NICE category	Risk	Panel target
Below 0.4	Take care	not categorised	underweight range on the Shape Chart	—
0.4 to 0.49	OK	Healthy central adiposity	no increased health risk	waist under half your height¹
0.5 to 0.59	Consider action	Increased central adiposity	increased risk of type 2 diabetes, hypertension and cardiovascular disease	—
0.6 or more	Take action	High central adiposity	further increased risk	—

Boundaries: 0.4, 0.5 and 0.6. The 0.5 line held for men and for women across 14 countries in the pooled analysis, which is why there is one chart and not two.

Your waist at each boundary, by height

Height times 0.4, 0.5 and 0.6. Find your height, and the middle column is the waist you want to stay under.

Height	Waist at 0.4	Waist at 0.5	Waist at 0.6
150 cm (59.1 in)	60 cm	75 cm	90 cm
155 cm (61.0 in)	62 cm	78 cm	93 cm
160 cm (63.0 in)	64 cm	80 cm	96 cm
165 cm (65.0 in)	66 cm	83 cm	99 cm
170 cm (66.9 in)	68 cm	85 cm	102 cm
175 cm (68.9 in)	70 cm	88 cm	105 cm
180 cm (70.9 in)	72 cm	90 cm	108 cm
185 cm (72.8 in)	74 cm	93 cm	111 cm
190 cm (74.8 in)	76 cm	95 cm	114 cm
195 cm (76.8 in)	78 cm	98 cm	117 cm
200 cm (78.7 in)	80 cm	100 cm	120 cm

Centimetres, rounded to the nearest whole. Divide by 2.54 for inches.

What the panel targets

The highlighted cell is not from the chart. It is what a named expert said on tape, verbatim, at the second linked. The waist-circumference and waist-to-hip cutoffs below are the panel's other named numbers for the same question.

1
waist under half your height · all

“your BMI is less relevant to me than your eye color but if your waist circumference is more than 50% of your height you should be concerned”
Dr. Peter Attia, on Andrew Huberman's show, on the record @ 96:54
2
under 40 in men, 35 in women

“it's highly correlated with visceral fat if it's greater than 40 in in man or 102 cm you're in trouble and if it's over 35 in in women or 88 CM you're in trouble”
Mark Hyman, on the record @ 24:09
3
under 35 in women, 40 in men

“total cholesterol to HDL ratio less than 3.5 to 1 waist circumference less than 35 in for women or 40 in for men and blood pressure less than 120 over 80”
Dr. Casey Means, on Andrew Huberman's show, on the record @ 62:58
4
waist-to-hip under 0.7

“for a female if it's less than 0.7 then your chance of having clinically significant aberration in visceral fat are low and then if it's greater than one you likely have higher levels of visceral fat”
Dr. Mary Claire Haver, on Andrew Huberman's show, on the record @ 54:03

What this chart does not tell you

It is a screen, not a scan. The ratio tracks visceral fat well at population scale. For one person, a DEXA visceral-fat reading is the direct measure, and Attia ranks that above any tape number.
Where you measure moves the number. Midway between the ribs and the hips, breathing out, tape level. Measuring at the belt line or after a meal shifts the ratio by a few hundredths, which is a category at the boundary.
Above a BMI of 35 the categories stop applying. The published guidance limits them to adults under that line. Ethnicity-specific cutoffs exist in the research but come from narrower samples, so we did not print them.

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The chart is the easy part. Moving the number is the argument.

Every category, both worked examples and the panel's named cutoffs above are free.

Pro adds

What each expert says shifts visceral fat first, and in what order they would change diet, sleep and training
The blood markers the panel pairs with waist size: fasting insulin, triglyceride-to-HDL, ApoB, with their stated targets
Where the panel splits on whether a lean person with a high ratio should act
Chat with the corpus: "I'm 0.54 at 45, where do I start" with a timecode behind the answer

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Where these numbers come from

Categories are the Ashwell Shape Chart and the NICE NG246 categories, as published in Ashwell 2025 (Nutrition Today). Ashwell M. Nutrition Today, 2025. doi:10.1097/NT.0000000000000778; Ashwell M, Hsieh SD. Int J Food Sci Nutr. 2005;56(5):303–307; Browning LM, Hsieh SD, Ashwell M. Nutr Res Rev. 2010;23(2):247–269.
NICE guideline NG246 is cited through Ashwell 2025, written by a committee member, because nice.org.uk could not be read from our network. The category names and boundaries match that reproduction word for word.
Every line in the panel column is verbatim off the tape and checked at build. A cutoff nobody stated does not appear.

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