# Medically Speaking, How Do I Measure My Waist?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/medically-speaking-how-do-i-measure-my-waist/461865>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [September 3, 2008, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/medically-speaking-how-do-i-measure-my-waist/461865 "2008-09-03T14:06:56Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\
**Post date:** [September 3, 2008, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/medically-speaking-how-do-i-measure-my-waist/461865/1 "2008-09-03T14:06:56Z")

</div>

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?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![hdc\_bst](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/9f8e36/32.png) [@hdc\_bst](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hdc_bst)\
**Post date:** [September 3, 2008, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/medically-speaking-how-do-i-measure-my-waist/461865/2 "2008-09-03T16:15:44Z")

</div>

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 :).

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\
**Post date:** [September 3, 2008, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/medically-speaking-how-do-i-measure-my-waist/461865/3 "2008-09-03T19:14:04Z")

</div>

> [@hdc\_bst](#):
>
> 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. 🙂