Tohoku J. Exp. Med., 2006, 208(1)

New Body Mass Index Criteria of Central Obesity for Male Japanese

NAOKO HORIE,¹ HIDEAKI KOMIYA,^1,2 YUTAKA MORI³ and NAOKO TAJIMA⁴

¹Department of Exercise Physiology, Utsunomiya University, Utsunomiya, Japan, ²Department of Public Health, Dokkyo University, School of Medicine, Tochigi, Japan, ³Department of Internal Medicine, National Hospital Organization Utsunomiya National Hospital, Kawachi-machi, Japan, and ⁴Division of Diabetes and Endocrinology, Department of Internal Medicine, The Jikei University School of Medicine, Tokyo, Japan

In recent years, intra-abdominal visceral fat leads to obesity-related complications. A simple indicator that reflects the mass of visceral fat is also needed to enable practical screening of patients. The present study was designed to establish new body mass index (BMI) criteria of central obesity for male Japanese. The subjects were 516 men aged from 19 to 80 years old who were examined at the physical examination center in the regular health check conducted by their company. Correlations between visceral fat area (VFA) or subcutaneous fat area (SFA) and BMI in the subjects were investigated. Receiver Operating Characteristics (ROC) curve was used to find out the optimal cut-off values of BMI to predict central obesity. We compared the percentile ranks corresponding to VFA of 100 cm², BMI of 25 kg/m² and new BMI criteria to check to see whether the present BMI criteria classify correctly Japanese men as central obesity. Further evidence for the effectiveness of BMI for VFA is needed. The correlation coefficient between VFA or SFA and BMI was 0.59 or 0.67, respectively. At the cut-off for BMI that maximized sensitivity and specificity for predicting central obesity was 24 kg/m². Moreover, the percentile value corresponding to VFA of 100 cm², BMI of 24 kg/m², and BMI of 25 kg/m² was the 53, 50 and 61 percentile, respectively. It is necessary to lower a cut-off point for central obesity from BMI of 25 kg/m² to 24 kg/m².

keywords —— VFA; ROC curve; optimal cut-off value of BMI; percentile

© 2006 Tohoku University Medical Press

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Tohoku J. Exp. Med., 2006, 208, 83-86

Received July 4, 2005; revision accepted for publication October 24, 2005.
Correspondence: Hideaki Komiya, Department of Exercise Physiology, Utsunomiya University, 350 Mine, Utsunomiya 321-8505, Japan.

e-mail: komiya@cc.utsunomiya-u.ac.jp