From pear to hourglass – what your body shape can reveal about your future health

Take a look in the mirror – it turns out your body shape may reveal more about your future health prospects than you realize.

From a pear to a straight ruler, your shape can reveal a whole host of clues about your longevity and risk of fatal disease.

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For more than a century, doctors have known that there are connections between certain body shapes and a person’s health prospects.

Much of what they discovered is not yet fully understood, but the mounting evidence is clearer than ever.

It turns out how your body is proportioned and where fat is located can have different effects on your organs.

It is important to be healthy and feel healthy regardless of your shape.

However, knowing your body type and the health risks associated with it can be helpful in staying in top shape.

Being aware of potential problems will help you work on the areas you need to stay fit and strong.

Here we look at five classic body types and what each says about a person’s health.

Apple

This is when people have larger waists in relation to their hips, creating a slight apple shape.

Amy Schumer, Oprah and Adele are all shaped like an apple.

Women with this body type are at the greatest risk of health problems compared to women with other body shapes.

Because obesity in the abdominal area can be very dangerous.

Researchers at the University of Oxford have found that larger waists and higher waist-to-hip and waist-to-height ratios put women at 10 to 20 percent higher risk of a heart attack.

More fat around the waist is also linked to an increased risk of cancer and diabetes.

Pear

This is another classic shape for women, where the fat is mainly located on the thighs, hips and buttocks.

Studies suggest that people who are thin but carry a little more weight on their hips and thighs have a lower risk of heart attack, stroke and diabetes.

Think of Jennifer Lopez, Beyoncé and Kim Kardashian.

This is because the butt and thighs are safer places for fat storage on the body.

Scientists say the hips and thighs act like a sponge, soaking up fat and preventing it from traveling through the body to the heart and liver, where it can cause disease.

Hip and butt fat is stored for months, while belly fat, the most dangerous type of fat, is released about two hours after a meal.

However, according to a recent study, being slimmer is always better, even when it comes to your lower body.

If you are overweight, losing weight from any part of your body – stomach, legs or buttocks – is good for lowering cholesterol, it said.

High levels of cholesterol can build up in the artery walls and reduce blood flow to the heart.

This increases the risk of a blood clot forming in the body and developing coronary heart disease.

hourglass

With the hourglass body type, the hips and chest are wider than the waist.

Scarlett Johansson and Sofía Vergara are both considered “hourglasses.”

Many consider it to be the most desirable body shape.

Some studies claim that women with this body type are less likely to suffer from depression and are more fertile.

However, an hourglass body shape means that weight gain is not concentrated in one area, as is the case with apple or pear shaped people.

This means that weight gain can be difficult to detect if you don’t check the scale regularly.

And if you become overweight, you’re also at a higher risk of chronic diseases like heart disease.

Inverted triangle

The inverted triangle body type is wide at the shoulders and narrow at the hips.

People with this body shape usually have larger breasts.

Men and women with smaller frames are at higher risk of osteoporosis because they have less bone mass to draw from.

Osteoporosis is a condition that affects bones and weakens them over time, meaning they are more susceptible to fractures.

There is evidence of a connection between the inverted triangle shape, which represents a narrow frame between the shoulders and hips, and weakening of the bones.

Ruler

Many slim celebrities have this body type, such as Cara Delevingne and Kate Moss.

But that doesn’t necessarily mean that all people with the shape of a ruler are thin.

Anyone with a fairly straight or columnar figure can be considered a ruler.

For example, if you are an overweight ruler, you are not at increased risk of heart disease and diabetes.

According to experts at Penn Medicine, it may actually be harder for a ruler-shaped person to even recognize that they are overweight because the weight is evenly distributed, so they never look fat.

They explained that this makes you just as likely to develop health problems like diabetes as any other body shape.