Waist-to-height ratio as a measure of abdominal obesity in southern Chinese and European children and adolescents

Background: Waist-to-height ratio (WHtR), with a 0.5 threshold (WHtR 0.5 ), is regarded as a simple age- and gender-independent criterion of abdominal obesity (AO) and a better predictor than the 90th percentile of waist circumference (WC P90 ). Objective: An analysis of gender and ethnic differences of WHtR and other AO indices between children and adolescents from southern China (HK: Hong-Kong, China) and Europe (LD: Łódź, Poland). Subjects: Two large cross-sectional surveys of children and adolescents aged 7–19 years, one from LD (13 172) and one from HK (14 566). Methods: The percentile and standardized values of WHtR and other parameters (WC, body mass index (BMI)) were assessed using the LMS method. The WHtR values corresponding to WC P90 and to the BMI definition of global obesity (BMI P95 ) were evaluated with the polynomial regression model. The compliance of the AO prevalence data, obtained with two criteria (WC P90 vs WHtR 0.5 ) was analyzed using Cohen's kappa index (κC). Results: The WHtR data of Polish subjects were generally higher than those of their HK peers, and the ethic differences increased with age. The WHtR values of HK boys showed a stronger relationship with BMI z -score. WHtR corresponding to WC P90 assumed values