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Concordance of the Recently Published Body Adiposity Index With Measured Body Fat Percent in European‐American Adults
Author(s) -
Johnson William,
Chumlea William C.,
Czerwinski Stefan A.,
Demerath Ellen W.
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
obesity
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.438
H-Index - 199
eISSN - 1930-739X
pISSN - 1930-7381
DOI - 10.1038/oby.2011.346
Subject(s) - medicine , concordance , body adiposity index , body mass index , classification of obesity , body fat percentage , fat mass , demography , sociology
The body adiposity index (BAI; hip circumference (cm)/height (m) 1.5 − 18) has recently been shown to demonstrate a stronger correlation with percentage body fat (%fat) than that between the BMI and %fat in Mexican‐American adults. Here, we compare the concordance between %fat from dual‐energy X‐ray absorptiometry (DXA) and BAI, and between %fat and BMI, in European‐American adults ( n = 623). Agreement between BAI, BMI, and %fat was assessed using Lin's concordance coefficients (ρ c ), where values <0.90 are considered poor. In the sample as a whole, the agreement between BAI and %fat (ρ c = 0.752) was far better than that between BMI and %fat (ρ c = 0.445) but was nonetheless relatively poor. There were large mean differences in %fat between the BAI and DXA %fat, particularly at lower levels of adiposity (<20%), and further the BAI overestimated %fat in males and underestimated %fat in females. Optimizing the BAI formula for our sample only marginally improved performance. Results of the present study show that BAI provides a better indicator of adiposity in European‐American adults than does BMI, but does not provide valid estimates of %fat, particularly at lower levels of body fatness. Further research is warranted to investigate the predictive ability of BAI for various health outcomes.