ADDITIONAL ABDOMINAL MEASUREMENTS ARE A USEFUL TOOL TO EVALUATE BODY COMPOSITION IN OBESE WOMEN

Area of Science:

• Obesity research
• Body composition analysis
• Anthropometry

Background:

• Excess adipose tissue accumulation in the trunk during weight gain alters body shape.
• This can impede accurate anthropometric measurements, particularly waist circumference (WC).

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the sensitivity and applicability of additional abdominal measurements for assessing body composition in obese women.
• To identify alternative methods for body fat assessment when standard WC measurements are challenging.

Main Methods:

• Assessed 30 obese women (BMI > 30 kg/m², age 20-50).
• Performed three WC measurements: WC1 (umbilical scar), WC2 (8 cm above), WC3 (16 cm above).
• Correlated WC measurements and their sum with fat mass (FM), free fat mass (FFM), % body fat (%BF), and % trunk fat (%TF) using dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) and bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA).

Main Results:

• WC1, WC2, WC3, and their sum showed strong to moderate correlations with FM, FFM, and %BF.
• These correlations were observed for total BIA, total DXA, and trunk DXA assessments.

Conclusions:

• The sum of three WC measurements robustly correlates with total and trunk DXA in obese women.
• This method is a potentially superior indicator of body and trunk fat compared to BIA.
• These measurements offer a practical alternative for assessing body and trunk fat when trunkal obesity hinders standard WC measurement.