Validity of self-measured waist and hip circumferences: results from a community study in Malaysia

Abstract

BackgroundMeasures of central adiposity are better predictors of adverse health events than BMI. Nonetheless, BMI is more widely used in health research. One reason for this may be the limited research supporting the self-measurement of waist and hip circumference. The lack of validity studies is particularly acute in Asia. The main objective was to establish the validity of self-measurement of waist and hip circumference in a community setting and the correlation of those measures with BMI, blood pressure, and blood glucose levels.MethodsA community based, cross-sectional survey. A “healthy living expo” at a shopping mall in a rural town on peninsular Malaysia One hundred and thirty six (136) individuals volunteered to participate in the study, 125 of whom met the inclusion criteria. The ethnic distribution of the participants was 80% Chinese, 17% Malay and 3% Indian. Most participants were female (60%), with participants’ ages ranging from 18 to 78 years (mean, 47.2). Self and assisted measurements of waist and hip were taken. Blood pressure, non-fasting blood glucose, height, and weight were also measured. Bland Altman plots and Lin’s concordance coefficient were used to measure agreement between self and assisted measures. Pearson’s correlation was used to examine the association of self and assisted measures with blood pressure, blood glucose, and BMI.ResultsThere was a downwards bias in self measured waist (-0.81 cm) and hip (-1 cm) circumferences compared with assisted measures. The concordance for the self and assisted measures of waist, hip and the ratio of the two were, respectively, .96, .93 , and .84. The correlation between measures of central adiposity and BMI, blood pressure and blood glucose were similar for self and assisted measures.ConclusionThe results provide additional support for the use of self-measurement of waist and hip circumference studies of central adiposity, but is limited by the specificity of the setting.

Validity of self-measured waist circumference in adults at risk of type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease

“…In agreement with our findings, several previous studies have reported an overestimation of WC [10,15,16,18,33,34], but other studies have found an underestimation of selfmeasured WC compared with objectively measured WC [11][12][13][14]17,19,35,36]. Higher values of BMI [13,14,17] were associated with a higher degree of underestimation, with females underestimating more than males [17].…”

Reliability and criterion validity of self-measured waist, hip, and neck circumferences

“…Previously published research comparing precision of self-report vs trained-technician measurements indicate self-report measurements may be sufficiently accurate for epidemiological studies [ 33 – 35 , 38 , 42 , 43 ]. The few research studies available suggest that training, especially video instructions, have the potential to improve self-reported waist measurement accuracy [ 37 , 41 ].…”

Association between dynamic obesity and mortality in patients with first-ever ischemic stroke: a hospital-based prospective study

“…Firstly, weight, height and WC were indicated by self-report of patients other than tool measuring, which may be biased [32]. However, previous studies have suggested that self-reported weight, height and WC have satisfactorily accurate for the assessment of the obesity status and have near-perfect correlations and agreement with measured anthropometric values [33,34]. Furthermore, BMI failed to distinguish between individuals with different types of fat distribution [35] and WC unable to distinguish persons with different height [36].…”