Loosen your belts: U.S. waist sizes keep expanding

The waists of men, women, blacks, whites and Mexican Americans all grew significantly from 1999 to 2012, researchers from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Tuesday in the medical journal JAMA.
The average man's waist grew from 38.9 inches to 39.7 inches; the average woman's belly expanded even more, from 36.3 inches to 37.8 inches.
Those are just averages. The study shows that more American guts are official health hazards – in an "abdominal obesity" The total amount of body fat is important, but the location of the fat is also important," he says. Abdominal fat is particularly dangerous, he says, even in people who are not otherwise obese because it is inflammatory.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/09/16/waist-sizes-expanding-study/15723771/ 

Focusing on the standards used by the study, TIME (9/16) reported the “sobering” CDC study shows “why it’s problematic to base weight status and health on body mass index (BMI).” TIME noted the debate over whether researchers should still use BMI to measure obesity “since the numbers can be misleading,” whereas waist circumference “is more indicative of where body fat is resting,” which has health implications.