Asians have lower body mass index (BMI) but higher percent body fat than do whites: comparisons of anthropometric measurements

Abstract

We studied the correlations between body mass index (BMI) and percent body fat (fat%) measured by dual-photon absorptiometry (DPA) in 445 white and 242 Asian adults aged 18-94 y. In addition, comparisons in six circumferences and eight skinfold-thickness measurements between whites and Asians were made to explain the discrepancies. Although Asians had lower BMI, they were fatter than whites of both sexes. The correlations between fat% and BMI varied by BMI and sex and race. Comparisons in anthropometry show that Asians had more subcutaneous fat than did whites and had different fat distributions from whites. Asians had more upper-body subcutaneous fat than did whites. The magnitude of differences between the two races was greater in females than in males. Prediction equations developed for each sex and race, based on BMI alone, gave SEEs ranging from 4.4% to 5.7%. All were significantly improved to the range of 3.5-4.4% when age and several skinfold-thickness measurements were added.

Differences in the relationship between body fat and body mass index between two different Indonesian ethnic groups: The effect of body build

“…Indonesian having the same BF%, age and sex generally have a 2.9 kgam 2 lower BMI compared to the Dutch (Guricci et al, 1998). Differences between ethnic groups in the BMIaBF% relation are also found in other studies (Swinburn et al, 1996;Wang et al, 1994;Luke et al, 1997), but not in all (Gallagher et al, 1996;Deurenberg et al, 1997). These differences among ethnic groups could be due to differences in physical activity, people with lower physical activity level having relatively less muscle mass and thus more fat mass at the same body weight.…”

“…This phenomenon is not limited to Indonesians. Studies in other Asian population groups also found relatively high body fatness compared to the BMI (Wang et al, 1994;Stevens, 1997) but a study in Beijing Chinese could not con®rm this (Deurenberg et al, 1997). Other authors studied the relationship between BF% and BMI among different ethnic groups and sometimes came to different conclusions.…”

Age, body mass index and Type 2 diabetes?associations modified by ethnicity

“…Preferential deposition and distribution of fat in the abdominal region is associated with reduced insulin-mediated glucose disposal, independent of an overall degree of obesity [28,29,30]. Anthropometric studies have shown that the distribution of fat differs between ethnic groups, and thus identical distributions of BMI in two populations could still reflect large differences with respect to the accumulation of intraabdominal fat, and Asian populations have been shown to be more prone to abdominal obesity and low muscle mass [27,31,32,33]. Thus excessive insulin resistance related to intra-abdominal fat deposition and low muscle mass could explain the very high prevalence of diabetes in the Indian populations despite the absence of significant obesity as expressed by BMI.…”

Superiority of the Modification of Diet in Renal Disease equation over the Cockcroft–Gault equation in screening for impaired kidney function in Japanese Americans

“…Consequently, we believe a correction factor for the MDRD equation may be needed in order that it has greater utility as a clinical tool for estimating GFR in Asians. [10,13,14,16,25].…”