Mirror the key to good health | The West Australian

AMANDA SAUNDERSThe West Australian Thighs should have a circumference greater than 60cm. A woman's waist should be no bigger than 80cm and 94cm for a man. A man's waist should be

less than 90 per cent of the circumference of his hips and a woman's 80 per cent. Body Mass Index should be below 24.5 but higher than 20. Resting heart rate should be fewer than 80

beats per minute. Bad cholesterol should fall short of 3.5mmol/L but the good variety should exceed 1.1mmol/L. Each week there seems to be a new measurement of health and people could be

forgiven for being bewildered by the array of data. But health professionals have identified the areas adults should concentrate on. While their views may differ, they are basically saying

the same thing - have a good look at yourself. If you have any doubts, get checked. Exercise physiologist and UWA School of Sport Science, Exercise and Health lecturer Dr Kym Guelfi said

waist circumference had superseded Body Mass Index as a measure of healthy weight and the risk of developing serious health conditions. "BMI gives you a rough idea of weight but waist

measurement gives you an idea of where you are carrying fat and it is more risky around your waistline because it is closer to your vital organs," she said. Fellow exercise physiologist

and UWA lecturer Associate Professor Brian Dawson said thigh size was an inaccurate health indicator because it varied greatly according to a person's occupation and exercise levels.

Leading public health advocate Michael Daube said people often overcomplicated the process of achieving good health. "By all means if you really are worried, go to your GP for checks

but there is a mythology around it that you need to check everything to the nth degree," the professor of health policy at Curtin University said. "Looking in the mirror isn't

a bad check." The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners says high cholesterol - a level exceeding 5.5mmol/L - does not necessarily indicate a high risk of heart disease.

"I have a lot of patients, very healthy women, who have high cholesterol yet their incidence of heart disease is very low," WA faculty chairman Dr Peter Maguire said. A Heart

Foundation survey released yesterday shows that one in six obese Australians and more than half of those overweight wrongly believe they are a healthy weight. The tendency to judge ourselves

against other people, rather than scientifically based weight guidelines, was "normalising" obesity, the foundation said. GET THE LATEST NEWS FROM THEWEST.COM.AU IN YOUR INBOX.

Sign up for our emails