Waist-to-hip ratio calculator
Waist divided by hips, placed against the same ratio for 11,119 adults measured by trained staff in a US national health survey. You get a percentile, which is a position, not a grade.
What the measured adults look like
| Percentile | Women (n = 5,890) | Men (n = 5,229) |
|---|---|---|
| 10th | 0.80 | 0.87 |
| 25th | 0.85 | 0.92 |
| 50th | 0.90 | 0.98 |
| 75th | 0.95 | 1.03 |
| 90th | 0.99 | 1.07 |
NHANES 2017–2018 and Aug 2021–Aug 2023, adults 18+, unweighted. The distribution is wide: half of all measured women fall between the 25th and 75th percentiles above, a range of about 0.10.
The ratio is one of the two differences the body shape calculator uses (the other involves the bust). It is also the number the measuring page is most concerned about, because the waist changes with breath and tape tension more than any other circumference.
References
The rules and figures on this page come from the sources below. Reference values are conventions from the literature, not targets.
- National Center for Health Statistics (2024). National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey: Body Measures (BMX) data, 2017–2018 and August 2021–August 2023CDC / NCHS public-use data files · NHANES BMX_J, BMX_LSource of the waist and hip circumferences behind the waist-to-hip percentiles here: 11,119 adults measured by trained staff. Unweighted, so the percentiles describe the examined sample rather than the US population exactly, and NHANES records no bust measurement.
Questions people ask
How is waist-to-hip ratio calculated?
Waist circumference divided by hip circumference, both in the same unit. A waist of 80 cm and hips of 100 cm give 0.80. Note that NHANES measures the waist just above the top of the hip bone under a fixed protocol; if you measure at the narrowest point, your ratio is not exactly comparable.
What is a normal waist-to-hip ratio?
In the NHANES adults this page compares against, the median is 0.90 for women and 0.98 for men, with the middle half of women between 0.85 and 0.95. Those are descriptions of a measured sample, not thresholds.
Is this a health test?
No. Waist-to-hip ratio is used in some health research, but this page reports only where your ratio sits among measured adults and makes no health claim. A percentile is not a diagnosis.
Where do the percentiles come from?
Two NHANES cycles (2017–2018 and August 2021–August 2023), adults 18 and over with both measurements recorded: 5,890 women and 5,229 men. The figures are percentiles within the pooled, unweighted examined sample, not estimates of US population percentiles.
How does this relate to body shape?
Hips minus waist is one of the differences the FFIT shape rules use, so a low ratio tends to go with a defined waist (hourglass family) and a ratio above 1.0 with the apple family (waist wider than hips). The shape calculator uses the bust as well, which this page does not.