Friday April 8 2022 | thetimes.co.uk | No 73752Adults will be urged to use a tape
measure to check their waist circumfer-
ence under guidelines aimed at reduc-
ing obesity rates.
The public will be persuaded to “keep
your waist to less than half your height”
as part of a plan to help the NHS to
Britons urged to grab a tape measure in battle against obesity
Eleanor Hayward
Health Correspondent
identify if people are too fat. The
National Institute for Health and Care
Excellence (Nice) proposed the meas-
ure in the first update to obesity man-
agement guidelines since 2014.
The institute said that the present
obesity measurement of body mass
index (BMI) should be interpreted with
caution because it does not provide an
accurate measurement of body fat.Waist-to-height ratios were a “simple
and effective” way to determine if
adults of all ethnicities were over-
weight, it said. The approach provides a
“truer” measure than BMI of excess
stomach fat, which puts people at high
risk of developing type 2 diabetes, high
blood pressure and heart disease.
Doctors will be told to encourage
adults to pick up a tape measure anddivide their waist circumference by
their height to work out if they need to
lose weight to stave off health risks.
A 162cm (5ft 4in) adult with a 74cm
(29in) waist would have a healthy ratio
but an 81cm (32in) waist would push
them into the unhealthy range. Nice
said that a waist-to-height ratio of 0.5 to
0.59 put people at increased health risk,
and 0.6 or more put them at the highestrisk. The guidelines will not apply to the
morbidly obese, with a BMI over 35,
who will automatically be classified as
at highest risk and are likely to be
referred by GPs for help such as weight-
loss groups. Almost two thirds of adults
in England are overweight or obese,
costing the NHS £6.1 billion a year.
Waist-to-height ratio is best warning,
page 4Rishi Sunak believes he is the victim of
a “political hit job” designed to cause
maximum damage after details of his
wife’s tax affairs were leaked.
The chancellor thinks the disclosure
of her tax status on the day he increased
national insurance was a “co-ordinated
attack”. Last night he said she was being
targeted with “unpleasant smears... to
get at me”.
Allies even claimed that the leak rep-
resented a potential criminal offence.
However, neither Sunak nor Akshata
Murty, his wife, have gone to the police.
“It feels like there’s a full-time brief-
ing operation,” one ally said. “This is a
hit job, a political hit job. Someone is
trying to undermine his credibility.”
Murty, whose father is one of India’s
richest men, enjoys non-domiciled tax
status, meaning that she does not have
to pay tax on earnings overseas. She has
a £690 million stake in Infosys, the
Indian technology giant founded by
her father, and has received more than
£54 million in dividends in the past
seven years. If she were not a non-dom,
she would have been liable for about
£20 million tax on the dividends.
Pressure on the couple intensified
yesterday as experts questioned Mur-
ty’s claim that she was a non-dom as a
consequence of her Indian citizenship.
Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour leader,
said the arrangements represented
“breathtaking hypocrisy” and that
Sunak had “very serious questions to
In the bright sunshine, Dariana,
Mikhael and Miriam gathered at a
pavement table to compare their wars.
“None of us ever left,” Dariana
explained. “And now, look,” she added,
gesturing around. “The spring has
finally come.”
A week after Russian troops
retreated from the shattered suburbs
around Kyiv, life has started returning
to the capital, shops and cafés
gradually opening as the city dares to
dream that the threat has receded.
Kyiv’s charismatic mayor, the
former heavyweight boxer Vitaly
Klitschko, declared it back open for
business yesterday, despite continued
martial law. “The municipal services
have started spring cleaning,” he
announced. “Parks, green areas are
being arranged and trees and flowers
are being planted.”
At Taras Schevchenko park, named
for Ukraine’s national poet, young
couples walked hand in hand, taking
in the beautiful day as old men played
chess, disregarding the sudden wail of
an air raid siren. In other parts of the
city, couples, dressed in the uniform of
Ukraine’s territorial defence forces,
were getting married.
Young adults and the very elderly
make up the bulk of the 1.5 million
people, half of Kyiv’s population,
believed to have stayed during the
invasion, even as Russian armoured
columns were bearing down from the
north and east.
It is children that the capital is
missing now: young families were
among the first to flee, both to
western Ukraine and into Poland,
Moldova and Romania. The first of
them began trickling back to Kyiv
yesterday, brought by train from Lviv
or by car, many to see the elderly
parents or men forced to stay behind
by immobility and martial law.
“I missed my city, I missed my
Continued on page 2, col 3£2.20 £1.45 to subscribers
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Inside
TimesAnastasiia and Viacheslav were among members of Ukraine’s territorial defence
forces who took advantage of a pause in the fighting to marry in Kyiv yesterdaySunak fears
revelations
over wife
are ‘hit job’
answer” about whether his wife had
enjoyed tax benefits. Sunak’s allies said
he believed that as a private citizen she
should not be subject to public scrutiny.
In his first public comments, Sunak
told The Sun that Murty’s tax status was
a result of her one day hoping to return
to India. He said: “It wouldn’t be reason-
able or fair to ask her to sever ties with
her country because she happens to be
married to me. She loves her country.
Like I love mine.” The chancellor denied
that the status reduced her tax, saying:
“The rates don’t make a difference.”
He had told only a few people in
government about his wife’s tax status,
including senior officials at the housing
ministry, where he worked in 2018-19,
the Treasury and the Cabinet Office.
The chancellor’s closest advisers
were said to be unaware, as was Boris
Johnson. However, some colleagues
believe the leak came from No 10 after
clashes over policy between the prime
minister and Sunak. This is strongly
disputed by both sides. Others claim
that an official tipped Labour off.
One minister suggested that Sunak
could be forced to resign. They said: “I
don’t think it’s sustainable. More and
more will be revealed about the family’s
finances. I don’t think he has Boris or
[Tony] Blair’s ability to ride out the
worst circumstances. His wife is a non-
dom billionaire and the questions are
only going to get more difficult.”
Another supporter of Sunak said
they felt “isolated” after few colleagues
spoke out in his defence. Johnson
Continued on page 2, col 5Kyiv begins to
bloom again
after Russian
withdrawal
Steven Swinford Political Editor
Henry Zeffman Associate Political Editor
Chancellor hits back at non-dom ‘smears’
MYKOLA TYMCHENKO REUTERSCatherine Philp
Ky i v