Receiver-operating characteristic analyses of body mass index, waist circumference and waist-to-hip ratio for obesity: Screening in young adults in central south of China.
OBJECTIVE
Recent data suggest that current obesity diagnostic criterion based on body mass index (BMI) above 30 in Caucasians may not be appropriate for Asian populations. Our aim was to identify the usefulness of BMI, waist circumference (WC) and waist-to-hip ratio (WHR) in screening for obesity in an Asian population.


METHODS
A cross-sectional sample of 1109 males and 879 females aged 20-45-yr were recruited. Height, weight, WC, hip circumference and percentage body fat (PBF) were measured in all subjects. Then receiver-operating characteristic analyses were used to evaluate the performances of the three anthropometric indices.


RESULTS
BMI, WC and WHR showed strong positive correlation with PBF (r=0.47-0.75) in both males and females within both age groups. True-positive rates ranged from 82.4% to 94.1% and 68.8% to 86.3% in males and females, respectively. True-negative rates ranged from 64.1% to 84.7% and from 56.9% to 79.0%, respectively. The areas under the curves (AUCs) for WC and BMI were high (0.76-0.92) in both sexes and divided age groups (20-30-yr and 31-45-yr), and those for WHR were a little lower (0.74-0.88).


CONCLUSIONS
BMI and WC are two important predictors for obesity in Chinese, and WHR is an alternative.
Yang
Fang
F
Laboratory of Molecular and Statistical Genetics and the Key Laboratory of Protein Chemistry and Developmental Biology of Ministry of Education, College of Life Sciences, Hunan Normal University, Changsha, Hunan 410081, PR China.
Lv
Jin-Hai
JH
Lei
Shu-Feng
SF
Chen
Xiang-Ding
XD
Liu
Man-Yuan
MY
Jian
Wei-Xian
WX
Xu
Hong
H
Tan
Li-Jun
LJ
Deng
Fei-Yan
FY
Yang
Yan-Jun
YJ
Wang
Yan-Bo
YB
Sun
Xiao
X
Xiao
Su-Mei
SM
Jiang
Cheng
C
Guo
Yan-Fang
YF
Guo
Jing-Jing
JJ
Li
Yuan-Neng
YN
Zhu
Xue-Zhen
XZ
Papasian
Christopher J
CJ
Deng
Hong-Wen
HW
D000273:Adipose Tissue / Q000378:metabolism; D000328:Adult; D019540:Area Under Curve; D044466:Asian People; D001823:Body Composition / Q000502:physiology*; D015992:Body Mass Index; D002681:China / Q000453:epidemiology; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008403:Mass Screening; D008875:Middle Aged; D009765:Obesity / Q000175:diagnosis*; D011237:Predictive Value of Tests; D012372:ROC Curve; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D012737:Sex Factors; D049629:Waist-Hip Ratio