Body Type Calculator
All seven body shapes from four measurements — with the rule that decided yours shown in full.
Body Type Calculator — your inputs
- Bust or chest
- 91 cm
- Waist
- 71 cm
- High hip
- 84 cm
- Hips
- 97 cm
- Unit system
- Metric
Key takeaways
- There are seven shapes, not four. Hourglass, bottom hourglass, top hourglass, spoon, triangle, inverted triangle and rectangle come from apparel research built to size garments from body scans.12
- The high hip measurement — about 18 cm below the waist — is what separates a spoon from a bottom hourglass. Skip it and only five shapes can be told apart.
- No shape is healthier than another. This page deliberately does not colour one favourably, because the source does not support it.
- The number here that does carry a health signal is waist-to-hip ratio — where fat is stored predicts risk better than how much there is.45
- Shape is largely set by skeletal frame and where your body stores fat, both strongly genetic.6 Losing weight usually makes the same shape smaller rather than changing it.
How to use this calculator
Take four measurements with a soft tape: bust at the fullest point, waist at its narrowest, high hip over the upper swell of the pelvis about 18 cm (7 in) below the waist, and hips at the widest point around the buttocks.
Stand straight with your arms at your sides. Keep the tape level all the way round and snug without compressing the skin, and read it at the end of a normal breath out.
The high hip is the measurement most people skip and the one that separates a spoon from a bottom hourglass. Without it, only five of the seven shapes can be told apart.
Both unit systems work — the classification uses differences between measurements, so it returns the same shape either way.
Understanding your result
Body shape describes the proportions between four circumferences, nothing more. The thresholds come from apparel research built to size garments from body scans, and they carry no health claim at all.
Your result is decided by the first rule whose every test your measurements pass, in the published order. The full working is shown under "How your shape was decided" — including the tests you narrowly missed, which is usually the interesting part.
The number on this page that does carry a health signal is the waist-to-hip ratio, because where fat is stored predicts cardiovascular and metabolic risk better than how much of it there is.
Shape is largely set by skeletal frame and fat distribution, both of which are strongly genetic. Losing or gaining weight changes the size of a shape far more readily than it changes the shape itself.
The seven body shapes
Most body shape guides offer four categories — apple, pear, banana, hourglass. The classification behind this calculator offers seven, and the extra three are not padding: they separate bodies that the four-category version lumps together and then describes badly.
Hourglass
Bust and hips level, marked waist
Bottom hourglass
Marked waist, hips larger
Top hourglass
Marked waist, bust larger
Spoon
Hips larger, high hip flares
Triangle
Hips larger, waist undefined
Inverted triangle
Bust larger, waist undefined
Rectangle
All four within a similar range
- Hourglass: Bust and hips level, marked waist
- Bottom hourglass: Marked waist, hips larger
- Top hourglass: Marked waist, bust larger
- Spoon: Hips larger, high hip flares
- Triangle: Hips larger, waist undefined
- Inverted triangle: Bust larger, waist undefined
- Rectangle: All four within a similar range
The three additions all concern the waist. A bottom hourglass and a triangle both have hips larger than the bust, but one has a marked waist and the other does not, and no amount of describing them as "pear" will make that distinction appear. A spoon shares the bottom hourglass's proportions above the waist and differs below it, flaring out sharply at the pelvis. A top hourglass is to the inverted triangle what the bottom hourglass is to the triangle.
| Shape | Also called | Defined by |
|---|---|---|
| Hourglass | X shape | Bust and hips within an inch of each other, waist at least 9 in below the bust or 10 in below the hips |
| Bottom hourglass | — | Hips 3.6–10 in larger than the bust, waist at least 9 in below the hips, high hip close to the waist |
| Top hourglass | — | Bust 1–10 in larger than the hips, waist at least 9 in below the bust |
| Spoon | Bell | Hips more than 2 in larger than the bust, waist drop of 7 in or more, high hip at least 1.193× the waist |
| Triangle | Pear | Hips 3.6 in or more larger than the bust, without a 9 in waist drop |
| Inverted triangle | Apple | Bust 3.6 in or more larger than the hips, without a 9 in waist drop |
| Rectangle | Banana, straight | Bust and hips within 3.6 in, with no marked waist |
Rectangle is the usual answer
A 2005 study of more than 6,000 women at North Carolina State University found about 46% were rectangles, just over 20% triangles, just under 14% inverted triangles, and only 8% hourglasses. If your result is rectangle, you are in the largest group by a wide margin — and the hourglass so often presented as the default is the rarest of the four.
How to measure so the answer means something
The shape boundaries are only a few centimetres apart, so technique matters more here than on most calculators. Two people measuring the same body differently can land in different categories — and a study assessing FFIT's reliability found that measurement variation, not the rules, is the main source of disagreement between assessments.7
- Measurement positions
- Bust or chest — around the fullest point, tape level all the way round, arms relaxed at your sides, over a properly fitted bra.
- Waist — at the narrowest point, usually just above the navel. Measure at the end of a normal breath out, not while holding it in.
- High hip — over the upper swell of the hip across the pelvic bones, roughly 18 cm (7 in) below the natural waist. This is above the fullest part of the buttocks; placing it too low is the single most common measuring error on this page, and it pushes the ratio down and turns a spoon into a bottom hourglass.
- Hips — at the widest point around the buttocks, feet together.
- Tape tension — snug enough to stay in place, loose enough not to indent the skin. If it leaves a mark, it was too tight.
- Consistency — first thing in the morning, over minimal clothing, the same way each time. Compare across months, not days.
Why the result can change without you changing
Bloating, a large meal, the time of day and even posture can each shift a waist reading by a centimetre or two. That is enough to move a borderline result from rectangle to hourglass and back. The working table in your result shows how close each test was, so you can tell a firm answer from a marginal one.
Where these categories come from
The seven shapes are not a medical taxonomy. They come from the Female Figure Identification Technique, developed at North Carolina State University to classify body scans so that clothing could be sized to fit real bodies rather than a single idealised block.1 Lee, Istook, Nam and Park later applied the same rules across US and Korean samples, and it is their seven-shape formulation that this calculator implements.2
That origin is worth stating plainly, because the vocabulary — hourglass, pear, apple — has escaped into health writing where it does not belong. FFIT works by comparing four circumferences against fixed thresholds expressed in inches, and applying the rules in a set order until one matches completely.
Two honest gaps in the published rules
First, the seven rules do not cover every possible body: a figure with hips more than 10 inches beyond the bust, a large waist drop and a high hip close to the waist satisfies none of them. Where that happens, this calculator reports the nearest shape by the same comparisons and says so in the working table rather than showing a blank. Second, the full technique defines nine shapes — diamond and oval cover a midsection wider than both bust and hips, and need abdomen and stomach measurements to separate them. Rather than ask for two more tape readings for two rare categories, this page reports the seven-shape answer and flags it when your waist is the widest of the four.
The measurement that actually predicts something
While shape carries no health meaning, two of the four measurements behind it do. Waist-to-hip ratio describes where fat is stored, and where fat is stored is a better predictor of cardiovascular and metabolic risk than total body weight.
The EPIC study followed more than 350,000 adults across Europe and found that waist circumference and waist-to-hip ratio were strongly associated with risk of death within every BMI category.4 In other words, two people at the same weight and height faced measurably different risk depending on where that weight sat. The INTERHEART study, a case-control analysis of nearly 27,000 people across 52 countries, reached the same conclusion for heart attack specifically: waist-to-hip ratio graded risk considerably more sharply than BMI did.5
- Low (women) (0.6–0.8)
- Raised (women) / Low (men) (0.8–0.9)
- Raised (0.9–1)
- Substantially raised (1–1.2)
| Category | Range |
|---|---|
| Low (women) | 0.6 to 0.8 |
| Raised (women) / Low (men) | 0.8 to 0.9 |
| Raised | 0.9 to 1 |
| Substantially raised | 1 to 1.2 |
The WHO treats a ratio at or above 0.85 in women and 0.90 in men as substantially raised, and uses those same cut-points as its definition of abdominal obesity — a threshold that identifies a partly different group of people from a BMI of 30.3 Someone with a healthy BMI and a raised ratio is exactly the case that weight alone misses.
If you take one number away from this page, take that one. The Waist-to-Hip Ratio Calculator reports it against the sex-specific thresholds, and the Body Fat Calculator answers the related question of how much fat there is rather than where.
Can you change your shape?
Mostly not, and the honest version of this answer is more useful than the marketable one. Body shape is driven by skeletal proportions — shoulder width, ribcage, pelvis — and by where your body preferentially deposits fat. Genome-wide studies have identified many loci associated with fat distribution independently of overall adiposity, and several act differently in men and women.6
What that means in practice: losing weight generally makes the same shape smaller rather than turning a triangle into an hourglass. Fat is lost from everywhere at roughly the proportions your body already favours, and "spot reduction" through targeted exercise does not work. What you can change is body composition and waist circumference — and since waist circumference is the part with the health signal, that is the useful target anyway.
A note on how these words get used
"Apple" and "pear" appear constantly in health marketing, usually attached to a product. The underlying observation — that abdominal fat carries more risk than hip and thigh fat — is real and well evidenced. The leap from there to a body-shape-specific diet or exercise plan is not.
Terms used on this page
- High hip
- The circumference over the upper swell of the hip across the pelvic bones, about 18 cm (7 in) below the natural waist and above the fullest part of the buttocks. Its ratio to the waist is the only thing separating a spoon from a bottom hourglass.
- Visceral fat
- Fat stored around the abdominal organs rather than under the skin. It is metabolically active and carries substantially more cardiometabolic risk, and it is the main reason waist circumference predicts outcomes so well.
- Somatotype
- A separate mid-century classification — ectomorph, mesomorph, endomorph — proposed by William Sheldon. It is unrelated to the circumference-based shapes here, and its original claims linking body build to personality have been thoroughly discredited.
- Anthropometry
- The measurement of the human body — heights, weights, circumferences and skinfolds. Cheap, non-invasive, and the basis of most population health screening.
The formula
- Bust 91 cm (35.8 in), waist 71 cm (28 in), high hip 84 cm (33.1 in), hips 97 cm (38.2 in)
- Hourglass test 1 — bust − hips = −2.4 in, which is ≤ 1 in ✓
- Hourglass test 2 — hips − bust = 2.4 in, under the 3.6 in limit ✓
- Hourglass test 3 — bust − waist = 7.9 in falls short of 9 in, but hips − waist = 10.2 in clears the 10 in alternative ✓
Source: FFIT seven-shape classification. Published clinical/scientific formula.
Limitations
- This is an apparel classification, not a health measure. No shape is healthier than another, and the calculator deliberately does not colour one favourably.
- The rules were derived from scans of women. Men can enter chest at the fullest point and the arithmetic still runs, but the thresholds were never calibrated on male bodies and the waist-drop tests will rarely be met.
- The full technique defines nine shapes. Diamond and oval — where the midsection is the widest part — need abdomen and stomach measurements this calculator does not ask for, so a waist-dominant body is reported as a rectangle and flagged in the result rather than being silently miscategorised.
- The seven published rules do not cover every possible body. Where none of them match, the result falls back to the nearest shape by the same comparisons, and the working table says so explicitly.
- Measurement technique moves the result more than most people expect — a tape pulled tight can shift a waist reading by several centimetres, and that is enough to change the reported shape.
References
- 1.Female figure identification technique (FFIT) for apparel: describing female shapes. Simmons, Istook & Devarajan, Journal of Textile and Apparel Technology and Management 4(1), 2004.
- 2.Comparison of body shape between USA and Korean women. Lee, Istook, Nam & Park, International Journal of Clothing Science and Technology 19(5):374–391, 2007.
- 3.Waist circumference and waist-hip ratio: report of a WHO expert consultation. World Health Organization, 2011.
- 4.General and abdominal adiposity and risk of death in Europe. Pischon et al., New England Journal of Medicine 359(20):2105–2120, 2008.
- 5.Obesity and the risk of myocardial infarction in 27,000 participants from 52 countries: a case-control study. Yusuf et al., The Lancet 366(9497):1640–1649, 2005.
- 6.Genetic studies of body mass index yield new insights for obesity biology. Locke et al., Nature 518(7538):197–206, 2015.
- 7.Assessing the female figure identification technique's reliability as a body shape classification system. Ergonomics 64(8):1035–1051, 2021.
Frequently asked questions
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Read articleNot medical advice. This calculator is for general informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional medical guidance. Always consult a qualified healthcare provider before making decisions about your health. Read the full medical disclaimer.
Printed from mystatura.com — for general information only, not medical advice.