Waist circumference

BMI does not take into account the differences between fat and lean tissue, nor distinguishes between different forms of adiposity, some of which may be associated more closely with cardiovascular risk.

A better understanding of the biology of adipose tissue has shown that central obesity (male type obesity or apple type) has a link with cardiovascular disease, only with BMI.

The absolute waist circumference (> 102 cm in men and> 88 cm in women) or waist-hip ratio (> 0.9 for men and> 0.85 for women) are used as measures of central obesity.

In a cohort of nearly 15,000 subjects in the study National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) III, the waist circumference explained that BMI significantly improved risk factors for obesity-related health when metabolic syndrome was taken as a measure.