Waist (inches)

Hip (inches)

Gender (0 male, 1 female)

Updates automatically as you type.

Calculated in your browser; your inputs are not sent to us. Privacy

Results will appear here.

General estimate for planning only — not medical advice. Consult a doctor about your specific situation.

Calculation details

Every figure above is calculated locally in your browser from the assumptions shown. No inputs are sent anywhere. See the methodology section below for the formulas used.

Use this resultShare the current inputs, or ask ChatGPT to explain the calculation in context.

Ask an AI to explain this result

Review the generated output before relying on it.

This tool runs in your browser. Your calculator inputs and results are never transmitted to us or to ad/affiliate partners. Ads and sponsored links may set third-party cookies to serve and measure them, but they never receive your calculation values. If you explicitly save a scenario, its permitted fields stay in local browser storage until you clear them. See our Privacy Policy.

Use this result

Share the current inputs or ask ChatGPT to explain the calculation in context.

Include calculator values in URL

More options

Report a calculation issue

WHR thresholds by sex with knife-edge female cases near 0.85 — A 0.05 threshold gap moves 33.9 inches from Moderate to High.

Method & verification

How This Tool Works

fact-checked against our calculation methodology

Calculation Method

Waist–hip ratio = Waist ÷ Hip

Site methodology

BoringToolsKit methodology and verification standard

No unrelated authority link is added merely to make this page look sourced. Tool-specific external sources are shown only when they directly support the method, rate, or rule.

Assumptions to Verify

These tools provide general estimates for planning and education only.
They are not medical advice and not a substitute for a qualified healthcare professional.
Always consult your doctor or another healthcare provider about your specific situation.

Privacy: The calculation runs in this browser. Shared links contain the page address only, not your inputs or results.

Worked examples: same waist, different hips

Take a male with a 36 inch waist and a 40 inch hip. The calculator divides 36 by 40, which gives 0.90. Against the male cutoffs, 0.90 is below the 1.0 high threshold but exactly at the 0.9 moderate line, so the result reads Moderate risk. Trim the waist to 34 inches with the same hips and the ratio becomes 34 / 40 = 0.85, which falls under 0.9 and shows Low.

Now a female with a 35 inch waist and 40 inch hips: 35 / 40 = 0.88. For women the high threshold is 0.85, so 0.88 lands in High even though the same numbers on a man would sit between the 0.9 and 1.0 cutoffs and read Moderate. That is the whole mechanism: one division, then a threshold lookup that shifts by 0.05 between sexes. A 40 inch hip measurement is doing half the work, which is why measuring the hip at the widest point matters as much as the waist.

Where the two-measurement method breaks down

A 0.05 threshold gap creates knife-edge cases. A woman at 33.9 inch waist over 40 inch hips scores 0.85 and is flagged High; at 33.5 inches she scores 0.84 and reads Moderate, even though the tape measurement itself can easily vary by a quarter inch depending on tape tension, clothing, or time of day. Waist circumference peaks right after a large meal and hip position shifts with where you hold the tape, so a single reading can move someone across a boundary with no real change in body composition.

The tool also caps inputs at 100 inches and rejects anything at or below zero, so it cannot handle the extreme waist sizes seen in severe cases. And because it compares waist to hip rather than to height, two people with identical ratios can carry very different absolute fat mass: a 5'2" person and a 6'1" person both at 0.95 have different absolute waist circumferences, which research links to risk independently. Treat the output as a screening flag; re-measure twice and average before acting on a borderline number.