Waist-to-height ratio is a simple tool for assessing central obesity and consequent health risk

Abstract

Since the dawn of the study of the human figure (shape and dimensions), science has consistently made progress in establishing its connection to health and physiologic homeostasis. In Vitruvius’ Ten Books of Architecture (30–20 BC), the perfect anthropometric harmony that keeps each body part with each other and the height of a person was recognized as the Divine Golden Section [Phi (ϕ) constant = 1.618], a fact perfectly illustrated in Leonardo da Vinci’s drawing e proporzioni del corpo umano secondo Vitruvio, or The Vitruvian Man, a nude man facing forward and surrounded by a square and a superimposed circle, proposing for the first time a connection between ideal human body proportions and overall health.