How to Properly Measure Your Waistline

According to the Help Guide organization, "For over thirty years, fat in our diet has been considered the culprit in obesity, heart disease, and high cholesterol." Measuring your waistline can help you assess whether you have excess abdominal fat, which can be a good indicator that you may be putting your health at risk. Although it's possible to measure belly fat with medical scanning equipment, these methods can be very expensive. A simpler method to estimate the amount of fat you have on your waist is with a measuring tape.

Things You'll Need

• Mirror
• Measuring tape

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Instructions

• 1

  Get a soft measuring tape and place it by your side. Pull up or remove your shirt until your middle is exposed. Grab the measuring tape and stand in front of a mirror to ensure that you will be using it correctly.

• 2

  Find the bony pelvis part of your waist by pressing your fingers into your torso. As your fingers are pressed into your skin, keep moving them until you find the top of a curvy part of the hip bone, known as the iliac crest; this will be your starting point.

• 3

  Loop the measuring tape completely around your waist, starting with the "0" on top of your hip bone. Make sure the tape is straight all around your waist, not dipping lower around back as this would give you an inaccurate reading.

• 4

  Measure your waistline. Stand up straight and breath out. Do not suck in your gut. Make sure you pull the tape so that there are no loose areas. Identify the number where the "0" meets a number on the tape. This number is your waist measurement.