OBJECTIVE To derive age- and sex-specific reference values for waist circumference (WC) and waist-to-height ratio (WHtR) for Han Chinese children and adolescents and to establish the prevalence of excess central adiposity in our study population. DESIGN Cross-sectional study of schoolchildren attending randomly selected primary and secondary schools in south-west China in October 2003 and Apr...

BACKGROUND A novel obesity classification method has been proposed using body mass index (BMI) and waist-height ratio (WHtR) together. However, the utility of this approach is unclear. In this study we compare the metabolic profiles in subjects defined as overweight or obese by both measures. We examine a range of metabolic syndrome features, pro-inflammatory cytokines, acute-phase response pro...

BACKGROUND Body mass index (BMI) has been found to associate with different parameters of chronic periodontal disease in previous studies. It is reasonable to expect that central adiposity measures, such as waist circumference and waist-to-height ratio, which indirectly takes into account visceral fat, are more accurate measures of obesity-related oral health risks than BMI. The aim of this stu...

OBJECTIVE This study investigated the associations between physical activity and the prevalence of obesity determined by waist-to-height ratio (WHtR) and body mass index (BMI). METHODS This is the first study to our knowledge on physical activity and obesity using a nationally representative sample of South Korean population from The Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. We ...

A ccumulating evidence suggests that measures of abdominal obesity outperform BMI in predicting diabetes and cardiovascular risk (1–3). However, it is debated which measure of obesity should be used. Currently, waist circumference (WC) is most commonly used and codefines the metabolic syndrome (4). Unlike waist-to-height ratio (WHtR), WC does not take differences in height into account. We hypo...

Our aim was to differentiate the screening potential of waist-to-height ratio (WHtR) and waist circumference (WC) for adult cardiometabolic risk in people of different nationalities and to compare both with body mass index (BMI). We undertook a systematic review and meta-analysis of studies that used receiver operating characteristics (ROC) curves for assessing the discriminatory power of anthr...