It's been known for a long time that carrying a lot of fat around your middle is bad for your health. But now it seems to be confirmed that in terms of heart attack risk what's more important than your overall BMI measurement is the state of your waist-to-hip ratio. A huge recent study analyzing 27,000 people found that BMI measurements were only slightly higher in people who had had heart attacks but much higher for people who had a high waist-to-hip ratio.