A widening waistline can harm the health of older women, even if they avoid obesity, new research suggests.
It’s a condition known as “central obesity” — a concentration of fat around the abdomen. Central obesity can occur even if it’s not enough to shift a person’s body mass index (BMI) into the obese range, explained researchers led by Wei Bao, a professor of epidemiology at the University of Iowa.
His study found that a large waist size — about 35 inches or more — significantly increased the risk of an early death for women over 49, even when they had a normal BMI.
The study findings suggest that doctors “look not only at body weight but also
