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Is the ratio waist circumference to height (WHtR) of 0.5 a universal measure for abdominal adiposity in children and adolescents?

International Journal of Obesity volume 40, pages 1141–1142 (2016)Cite this article

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In the January issue of the Journal, Inokuchi et al.1 published reference values for waist circumference-to-height ratio (WHtR) for Japanese children and adolescents. They recommend age- and sex-specific reference values and preclude the use of a universal cutoff of 0.5, which was proposed by McCarthy and Ashwell (‘keep your waist circumference to less than half of your height’) for adults and children of both sexes and all ages.2

As shown in Table 1, median WHtR value was 0.509 among 3-year-old children, which decreased continuously in boys until 14 years (0.462) and in girls until 13 years (0.424), whereas at the beginning of overweight (85th percentile) 3-year-old boys had a median WHtR value of 0.546 and girls 0.548, which continuously decreased to 0.482 at 15 years in boys and to 0.479 at 11 years in girls. Among severely obese children (97th percentile), at 3 years boys had a median WHtR value of 0.583, with a nadir of 0.549 at 12 years and a re-increase to 0.562 at age 18, while girls started with 0.587, with a nadir of 0.536 at 8 years and a maximum of 0.597 at 18 years.

Table 1 Values for Box−Cox power L, the adjusted mean M and the coefficient of variation S, and the percentiles for 22 113 German males and females aged 3−18 years, based on the 1993−2007 surveys
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Figure 1

References

  1. Inokuchi M, Matsuo N, Takayama JI, Hasegawa JIT . Waist-to-height ratio centiles by age and sex for Japanese children based on the 1978–1981 cross-sectional national survey data. Int J Obesity 2016; 40: 65–70.

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  2. McCarthy HD, Ashwell M . A study of central fatness using waist-to-height ratios in UK children and adolescents over two decades supports the simple message—'keep your waist circumference to less than half your height'. Int J Obes (Lond) 2006; 30: 988–992.

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  3. Schwandt P, Haas GM . Reference curves of waist circumference in children and adolescents 2012, Part 13. In: VR Preedy (ed). Handbook of Anthropometry. Springer Science Business Media, LLC: London, UK, 2012, pp 1405−1412.

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  4. Zimmet P, Alberti G, Kaufman F, Tajima N, Silink M, Arsolanian S et al. on behalf of the International Diabetes Federation Task Force on Epidemiology and Prevention of Diabetes. The metabolic syndrome in children and adolescents. Lancet 2007; 369: 2059–2061.

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  1. Ludwig-Maximilians University of Munich, Munich, Germany

    P Schwandt

  2. Atherosclerosis Prevention Institute, Munich-Nuremberg, Germany

    P Schwandt & G-M Haas

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  1. P Schwandt
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  2. G-M Haas
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Correspondence to P Schwandt.

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Schwandt, P., Haas, GM. Is the ratio waist circumference to height (WHtR) of 0.5 a universal measure for abdominal adiposity in children and adolescents?. Int J Obes 40, 1141–1142 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/ijo.2016.51

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