title: Non-contact assessment of waist circumference: will tape measurements become progressively obsolete?
abstract: Waist circumference (WC) is a key variable to assess in health management as it is a proxy of abdominal fat mass and a surrogate marker of cardiometabolic disease risk, including the metabolic syndrome. Recently, a portable non-contact device calculating WC (ViScan) has been developed, which hence allows the tracking of WC independently of the inter-investigators error. We compared WC values obtained with this device with WC measured by simple non-stretchable tape in 74 adults of varying body mass indices (range 17-39 kg/m(2)). The correlation between the two methods was very high (r=0.97, P<0.0001) and the reproducibility (precision) assessed with a rigid phantom was excellent (<1 cm, coefficient of variability<1%). The instrument constitutes a potentially valuable tool for longitudinal surveys and comparative international studies, which require simple but precise measurements of WC in order to track the effect of subtle changes on various health outcomes.
authors: Department of Physiology, University of Lausanne, Switzerland. yves.schutz@unil.ch
authors: Y
authors: Y
authors: Schutz
authors: D
authors: D
authors: Sarafian
authors: J L
authors: JL
authors: Miles
authors: J-P
authors: JP
authors: Montani
authors: A G
authors: AG
authors: Dulloo
mesh_terms: D050153:Abdominal Fat; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000886:Anthropometry / Q000379:methods; D015415:Biomarkers; D015992:Body Mass Index; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D024821:Metabolic Syndrome / Q000175:diagnosis*; D008875:Middle Aged; D010808:Physical Examination / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D055105:Waist Circumference; D055815:Young Adult
chemical_list: D015415:Biomarkers