A proposal for a primary screening tool: `Keep your waist circumference to less than half your height’

Table 2 Example to show simplicity of WHtR cut offs for different ethnic groups

Anthropometric measurements, by sex	White	South Asian (Pakistani)	South Asian (Indian)	Chinese	Black
Men
BMI (kg/m²)	30	21.5	22	26	26
Waist circumference (cm/in)	102/40	78/30.7	80/31.5	88/34.6	88/34.6
*Waist-to-height ratio (proposed by authors of this paper)*	*0.5*	*0.5*	*0.5*	*0.5*	*0.5*
Women
BMI (kg/m²)	30	21.6	22.3	24	26
Waist circumference (cm/in)	88/34.6	68/26.7	70/27.5	74/29	79/31
*Waist-to-height ratio (proposed by authors of this Opinion)*	*0.5*	*0.5*	*0.5*	*0.5*	*0.5*

Table 2 shows the ethnic-specific BMI and waist circumference cut-offs that equate to those developed on white populations in terms of diabetes prevalence (proposed by [34]). Data are from the UK Biobank, which recruited 502,682 residents 40- to 69-years old. The table shows baseline data from the 490,288 participants from the four largest ethnic sub-groups. 96.1% were white, 2.0% were South Asian, 1.6% were black and 0.3% were Chinese. The waist-to-height ratio boundary values proposed by these authors (MA and SG) have been compared with these values to illustrate the universality and simplicity of this boundary value. These values are in bold italics to distinguish them from those generated from the Biobank data.

ISSN: 1741-7015