We’ve had horses most of my life, and I always thought a fat horse was a happy horse. Maybe because the easy keepers didn’t need much extra attention.
Guess I hadn’t thought it through. At a recent conference for women involved in agriculture, I learned how to evaluate a horse’s general health with a body condition score, a method developed in 1983 at Texas A&M University.
Basically, the tool helps determine an equine’s degree of fatness, said Dr. Kathy Anderson, an extension horse specialist from the University of Nebraska.
A horse at the lower end of a 1 to 9 scale is too thin, which negatively affects energy and performance. A chubby one in the 8 to 9 range carries a high risk for health complications.
Equines who score around 5 or 6 are generally the healthiest, Anderson explained. These were the horses that didn’t have ribs showing, but they could be felt. And they had some fat on the rest of their body, but it was not bulging.
“There is absolutely no benefit for a horse to get too fat,” she said.
It would be cool to have a similar scale for humans.
What we do have are anthropometrics — simple measurements on the outside of the body that help determine how well the inside of the body is working.
In infants and young children, for example, measurements of height (or length), weight and the area around a child’s head can easily evaluate whether there may be problems with growth or development.
In older children and adults, anthropometric measurements help determine the degree of fatness. Like in equines, an inadequate or excessive fat layer can tell us a lot about our nutrient needs and risk for illness.
Where we carry our fat matters, too. A horse with too much fat stored in the neck is at high risk for a pituitary disease called Cushing’s. In humans, excess fat around the middle is tied to heart disease and the development of Type 2 diabetes.
How much is too much tummy fat?
Measure your waist circumference. Stand and place a tape measure around your middle, just above your hipbones, says the National Institutes of Health. No fair holding your breath while you measure. Men, if you score less than 40 inches, you’re good. Women, less than 35 inches.
Better for predicting problems, according to some experts, is a waist-to-hip ratio. Along with waist circumference, measure around the widest part of your hips and largest part of your backside. Then divide your waist circumference by your hip measurement. According to the World Health Organization, a waist-hip ratio of more than 0.86 in women or 1.0 in men indicates a higher risk for heart disease and other weight-related conditions.
Yes, these scores and measurements do have their limits. Yet they also help us pay attention. I think I’ll look for my tape measure.
Barbara Quinn-Intermill is a registered dietitian and certified diabetes educator affiliated with Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula. She is the author of “Quinn-Essential Nutrition” (Westbow Press, 2015). Email her at to [email protected].
