Size Does Matter – And Men Still Get It Wrong

Vain British men perceive themselves to be more than three inches slimmer than they really are and are ignoring a warning sign for diabetes. In a study presented this week to Diabetes UK’s Annual Professional Conference (APC) in Glasgow, attended by over 3,000 healthcare professionals, more than 500 men and women were asked to estimate their waist size. Most under-estimated by an average of 2.7 inches.

Men were the most deluded and underestimated their waist size by a significant 3.1 inches (7.9 cm), whilst the estimates of South Asian women were generally the most accurate.

Having a large waist is one of the main risk factors for developing Type 2 diabetes, a serious condition that can lead to devastating complications such as blindness, heart disease, stroke, amputation and kidney disease.

80 per cent of people diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes are overweight at the time of diagnosis.

Diabetes UK is encouraging people to measure their waist as a way of seeing if they could be at risk of developing the condition.

The study, conducted by researchers from Leicester University, looked at 502 people from a variety of ethnic backgrounds. Women in general got their waist measurements wrong by 2.2 inches (5.5cm). People from white European backgrounds were worse than people from South Asian backgrounds when estimating measurements, with an average 2.9inches (7.4cm) error compared to 1.6 inches (4.1cm) for South Asians.

"Measuring up is a reality check, the first step to recognizing that you may not be as well as you feel," said Douglas Smallwood, Chief Executive of Diabetes UK.

"To believe that you are more than three inches slimmer than you are is to ignore a clear warning of a risk of diabetes.

"It can take years for symptoms of diabetes to emerge so simple indicators like waist size are important signals. There are up to 750,000 people in this country who have Type 2 diabetes but are not yet diagnosed."

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FACT: Cancer Risk Increases With Body Mass Index: People who are overweight or obese are at higher risk for both common and less common cancers, WebMD reports. Investigators from the University of Manchester, United Kingdom, performed a meta-analysis of 221 data sets covering more than 28,000 cases and found that a 5 kg/m2 increase in body mass index (BMI) in men was associated with a 52% greater risk of esophageal adenocarcinoma, 33% higher risk of thyroid cancer, and 24% increased risk for colon and kidney cancers. In women, a 5 kg/m2 BMI increase raised the risk of endometrial and gallbladder cancers by 59% each, esophageal adenocarcinoma by 51%, and kidney cancer by 34%. There were weaker, but still significant, positive associations between increased BMI and rectal cancer and malignant melanoma in men; postmenopausal breast, pancreatic, thyroid, and colon cancers in women; and leukemia, multiple myeloma, and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma in both genders. 
Lancet, February 16, 2008