Waist circumference in relation to body perception reported by Finnish adolescent girls and their mothers

To study how waist circumference (WC) relates to body perception in adolescent girls and to maternal perception of the girl's body size.

Three hundred and four girls, 11-18 years, were measured for height, weight and WC. 294 girls provided self-report data on weight, height and body image before anthropometric measurements. Paired data from 237 girls and mothers on perception of the girls' body size were collected.

In girls, self-reported weight indicated awareness of actual body size. The girls' body perception showed an overestimation of body size relative to international reference values for body mass index (BMI) (p < 0.05), but not for WC. Girls' body perception exceeded that of their mothers (p < 0.05). Maternal perception agreed better than the girls' perception with international reference values for BMI (p < 0.05). No significant difference between mothers and girls were found concerning agreement of body perception with international reference values for WC.

WC rather than BMI agrees with perception of body size, possibly due to its relation to abdominal fat at different ages. For effective prevention and treatment programmes for weight-related health problems among adolescent girls, we recommend measuring WC to diminish the discrepancy between measured and perceived body size.