title: Waist circumference as a screening measurement for overweight or centrally obese Chinese.
abstract: The hypothesis that a single measurement, waist circumference, might be useful to identify people at health risk both from being overweight and from having central obesity was tested using data on 1513 subjects from a prevalence survey of diabetes mellitus in Hong Kong Chinese. It was found that a waist circumference > or = 94 cm for men and > or = 80 cm for women identified subjects with high BMI (> or = 25 kg/m2), and those with lower BMI but high WHR (> or = 0.95 for men, > or = 0.80 for women) with a sensitivity of < 31% and specificity of 100%. Decreasing the waist circumference cut-off to 85 cm for men and 75 cm for women increased the sensitivity to 79.2% in men and 56.4% in women. It was concluded that a single waist circumference measurement did not allow sensitive identification of people at health risk from being overweight or from having central obesity.
authors.affiliation: Department of Medicine, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Prince of Wales Hospital, Hong Kong.
authors.forename: G T
authors.initials: GT
authors.lastname: Ko
authors.forename: J C
authors.initials: JC
authors.lastname: Chan
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Woo
authors.forename: C S
authors.initials: CS
authors.lastname: Cockram
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001824:Body Constitution / Q000502:physiology*; D015992:Body Mass Index; D002681:China / Q000453:epidemiology; D003920:Diabetes Mellitus / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000503:physiopathology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008403:Mass Screening; D009765:Obesity / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000517:prevention & control*; D015995:Prevalence; D012307:Risk Factors; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity