Medically Speaking, How Do I Measure My Waist?

For the purposes of measuring body fat, where does the tape measure go?

My rampant googling/wikipedia-ing gives me a vast range of answers, from ‘‘the narrowest part of your torso’’ to ‘‘around your belly button’’ to ‘‘about where your elbows rest.’’

Is there a standard, medically sanctioned answer to this question?

The appropriate place to measure depends on what set of calculations you are using.

You might want to check out the Army’s body fat worksheets, DA5500-R (male) and DA5501-R (female). They have simple to follow and explicit instructions. Not a medically sanctioned answer, I know :).

Thank you very much for this resource. I found the worksheets to be very simple and consistent. :slight_smile: