It's a condition known as"central obesity" – a concentration of fat around the abdomen. Central obesity can occur even if it's not enough to shift a person's body mass index into the obese range, explained researchers led by Wei Bao, a professor of epidemiology at the University of Iowa.His study found that a large waist size – about 35 inches or more – significantly increased the risk of an early death for women over 49, even when they had a normal BMI.
In the new study, Bao's group tracked data from more than 156 000 US women, aged 50 to 79, whose health was tracked from 1993 to 2017 as part of a large national study.Women who were considered to have normal BMI but had a large waist size had a 31% higher risk of dying during the study period, compared to those with a normal BMI but a smaller waist.
Another expert, Dr Guy Mintz, said,"This study serves as a wake-up call to physicians to not be satisfied with just a BMI, but to look at fat distribution and waist circumference." In doing so, doctors can spot"a group of patients that might be otherwise overlooked", he noted.