In a Boston Globe (Globe) article dated September 17, 2014, by Lindsay Tanner, the Globe states a finding about waistlines and its ties to obesity, diabetes, cancer and bad health in general.  Centers for Disease Control state that belly fat is the most dangerous kind of fat and people who are obese using the belly fat measure (it is a tape measure of a person’s waist) has grown.

The study states how obesity is defined as a waistline of 40 inches for a white male and 35 inches for women.  The 12 year study stated that the average waist size in the US expanded to 38 inches for women, a gain of 2 inches, and 40 inches for men, a gain of 1 inch.  The study went on to find that 54% of US adults have abdominal obesity up from 46% in 1999-2000.

Yet, most physical exams in the US do not measure waist size.  I know that children’s waists are measured at annual physicals, but not for most adults.  So, here we are in the US with a crisis and our health system, the most expensive per capita in the world, does not even measure a critical marker of health!

I suspect that there is little profit in measuring waistlines so we forgo measuring something that would be of great value!