During this 14 year study, researchers looked at 15,000 adults and found that the location of fat may be a better indicator of health than using the Body Max Index (BMI).
The study found that men with excess amounts of abdominal fat were twice more at risk of dying of cardiovascular and heart disease compared with those that did not.
Women were 32% more likely to die if they had excess belly fat compared with those within a healthy waist circumference.
The reasons why central obesity is considered more dangerous compared to fat stored on the hips is that the liver can become inflamed and fat around the abdomen is metabolically active as it releases more of these inflammatory toxic chemicals that increase the risk of heart disease.
This group had the highest death rate including those who were considered obese according to their BMI.
Many experts now believe that measuring a person's waist circumference or waist and hip ratio is a better indicator of health rather than BMI, as this form of measuring only measures total body weight and doesn't take note of muscle mass and whether the person is carrying excess body fat or not.
A healthy waist circumference is no more than 102 cm/40.2 inches for men and 88cm/34.6 inches for women.
A healthy waist/hip ratio is no more than 0.95 for men and 0.85 for women.
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