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Analysis of Anthropometric Measurements Using Receiver Operating Characteristic Curve for Impaired Waist to Height Ratio Detection

Abstract:

Metabolic dysfunctions such as obesity, insulin resistance, metabolic syndrome, and glucose tolerance are strongly related to each other. The presence of any of them in a person translates into a high risk of diseases such as diabetes, heart failure, and cardiovascular disease. Anthropometric measurements such as body circumferences, body folds, and anthropometric indices such as waist-height ratio (WHtR) and body mass index (BMI) have been widely used in the study of metabolic diseases. This study aims to look for relationships between WHtR and anthropometric measurements such as subcutaneous folds and body circumferences. For this purpose, a database of 1863 subjects was used, 16 anthropometric variables were measured for each participant in the database and the BMI was calculated. The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were used to assess the ability of BMI and each anthropometric measurement was used to diagnose BMI impairment. The findings reported in this research strongly suggest that the diagnosis of WHtR deficiency can be made from circumferences, skinfolds, and BMI. In this study, the anthropometric measures that best detect subjects with WHtR deficiency were BMI, subscapular skinfold, supra iliac skinfold, and arm circumference with a high probability of detecting normal WHtR-deficient subjects. Abdominal circumference is one of the areas that have the most direct relationship with cardiac metabolic risk, however, the findings of this study open the possibility of studying accumulated fat tissue in the arms and back as areas that could also indicate a risk of metabolic dysfunction.