How to Measure Your Waist

Waist measurement is an important number used for many purposes, from choosing clothes to determining if your weight is healthy. Fortunately, waist circumference is easy to measure, and you can do it with just a measuring tape.

Table of Contents

Take measurements

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Undress or pull up your shirt. To get an accurate measurement, you need to make sure the tape measure is snug against your bare belly, so you should remove all layers of clothing around your waist. Take off your shirt or pull it up to your chest. If you get stuck in your pants while measuring, you must also pull them down to your hips.

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Find the waistline. Use your fingers to find the top of your hips and the bottom of your ribcage. The waist is the soft flesh in between these two bones. ^{[1] X Source of Study} It will be the narrowest part of the upper body and is usually located above the navel.

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Loop the tape measure around the waist. Stand up straight and breathe normally. Hold the tape measure at the level of your navel and loop the tape measure across your back to the front. The measuring tape should lie parallel to the floor and snugly around the upper body and not deeply embedded in the skin. ^{[2] X Research Source}

Make sure the tape measure around the waist is straight, not twisted anywhere, especially at the back.

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Read measurements. Exhale and check the measurement on the tape measure. ^{[3] X Research Source} The waist measurement will be on the tape measure at the intersection between the zero end and the rest of the gauge. Waist measurements may be in inches and/or centimeters, depending on the unit of measurement on the tape measure you use.

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Check the measurement again. Measure again to make sure the first measurement is correct. If the next measurement does not match the first measurement, take a third measurement and take the average of the three measurements.

Read the results

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Check to see if your body measurements are in a healthy range. A healthy measurement would be less than 94 cm for men or less than 80 cm for women. ^{[4] X Research Sources} Gender-related measurements larger than the above can be indicative of serious health problems, such as heart disease and stroke. ^{[5] X Research Source} Waist measurements greater than the upper limit may also indicate an increased risk of type 2 diabetes and cancer. ^{[6] X Trusted Source National Health Service (UK) Go to Source}

If your measurements are not within the healthy range, you should talk to your doctor.

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Consider factors that could make a measurement result unhelpful. In some cases, waist measurement is no longer a useful indicator of good health. For example, if you’re pregnant or have a condition that causes your belly to swell (full or bloated), your waist measurement may be outside the healthy range, even if you’re in good health. Similarly, some ethnicities tend to have larger waistlines, such as Chinese, Japanese, South Asians, indigenous people, or descendants of Torres Strait Islanders. ^{[7] X Research Sources}

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Check your BMI for more information about your weight . If you’re not sure if your weight is in the healthy range after measuring your waist, you can calculate your BMI (body mass index). ^{[8] X Trusted Source National Health Service (UK) Go to source} This indicator takes height and weight measurements to calculate if you need to lose weight. ^{[9] X Trusted Source National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute Go to Source}

If your BMI results show that you are overweight or obese, you should talk to your doctor about options to lose weight and maintain a healthy weight.

Advice

If you want to track changes in body size, you should measure your waistline monthly. This can be useful in tracking health or any changes in body size if you need to tailor clothes for special occasions like weddings, graduations or for theater performances, etc.

Steps

Take measurements

Read the results

Advice

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