DR MICHAEL MOSLEY: Can you pass the string test? A brilliantly simple way to ...

To start the string test you need to cut a piece of string which is as around as tall as you are

To start the string test you need to cut a piece of string which is as around as tall as you are

A warning that being overweight is bad for you is hardly news, but the message was hammered home last week by yet another big study, based on data collected from more than 2.8 million British patients.

The researchers began this particular study in 2000 and then looked at what happened to those patients over a ten-year period. To make comparisons, they put the patients into weight categories, based on their body mass index score, or BMI.

This is a height-to-weight ratio that you can easily find out by using one of the many online calculators: the one on nhs.uk is a good first port of call. It turned out that those who were very obese – with a BMI of 40 or more – at the start of the study were 22 times more likely to develop sleep apnoea, where you stop breathing for short periods during the night, 12 times more likely to develop type 2 diabetes, and four times more likely to develop heart failure than those who kept to a healthy weight.

But even if their BMI suggested they were just a bit overweight at the start of the study, they were still twice as likely to develop type 2 diabetes and problems with sleeping over the next few years.

After cutting the string (above) you need to fold it in half and try and wrap it around your middle

After cutting the string (above) you need to fold it in half and try and wrap it around your middle

BMI? it’s more like the BALONEY MASS INDEX

THIS was a big, careful study that produced scary statistics but even so, it may have underestimated the risks. Like so many studies of this type, it relied on BMI – which is not a particularly good way of assessing how much fat you are carrying.

You need to check the end of string meet, if you struggle to do this, it could mean you are carrying too much weight

You need to check the end of string meet, if you struggle to do this, it could mean you are carrying too much weight 

You can, for example, be muscly with a high BMI. Muscle weighs a lot, making people heavy, which skews the calculation. Fat weighs less. And for this reason, you can be fairly light, with a low BMI, and yet have far too much body fat, particularly gut fat.

A more accurate way of measuring body fat is by using a DEXA scan, which is similar to an X-ray, and can be carried out in some hospitals. This gives you a very precise measure of how much body fat you have and where it is distributed.

In a study done in the US, they looked at the results of 1,234 patients who had their BMI measured and who also had DEXA scans. Men were considered obese if the DEXA revealed that they had a body fat of 25 per cent or more. In other words, if a quarter of their body was made of fat. With women, because they naturally carry more fat, having a body-fat score of over 30 per cent was considered to be obese.

Based on BMI, only 20 per cent of the patients in this particular study were considered obese. Using DEXA, it turned out to be an astonishing 56 per cent.

How YOU can do the test - in just two minutes!

Start by cutting a piece of string to make it as tall as you are. Then fold that piece of string in half and try to wrap it around your middle.

See if you can make the two ends meet. If you struggle to do this, it suggests that you are carrying too much weight around your middle, and therefore, your visceral fat level is probably too high.

Alternatively, you can get a tape measure and measure your waist.

Measure around your belly button. Do not rely on your trouser size.

Ideally your waist should be less than half your height. So if you are 6ft (72in) tall, your waist should be less than 36in.

 

Dr Eric Braverman, of the New York Presbyterian Hospital, who ran the study, describes BMI as ‘the baloney mass index’.

He is worried that it misses lots of what he calls normal-weight obesity: people who have a low BMI but relatively little muscle and a high percentage of body fat.

These patients are at high risk of diabetes and heart disease, but as he points out, ‘because they don’t think they’re obese, but “just a little flabby”, they

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