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Women and Heart Disease > Evaluation and Prevention

Overweight/Obesity

Obesity is an independent risk factor for CAD³⁴ and profoundly affects lifespan.² The prevalence of obesity in the US has risen by more than 61% since 1993,² and, in 2000 alone, obesity was associated with almost 112,000 excess deaths.³⁵

Almost two thirds (61.6%) of women in the United States are overweight (body mass index [BMI] 25), and approximately one third (33.2%) are considered obese (BMI 30).² Abdominal obesity confers more risk than adiposity in other areas of the body.^36,37 While BMI has been the accepted standard for defining overweight and obesity, waist circumference may be more important, as waist-hip ratio has been shown to provide prognostic information beyond waist circumference and BMI.^38,39 In a recent multinational study, waist-to-hip ratio showed a graded and highly significant association with the risk for MI, while BMI showed only a modest association.³⁹

Risk Factors

Office-Based Risk Assessment

Risk Reduction