Comparison of Body Mass Index with Body Fat Percentage in the Evaluation of Obesity in Chinese

Objective To evaluate the present Chinese body mass index (BMI) criteria with body fat percentage (BF%) in determining obesity in Chinese population. Methods A total of 4 907 subjects (age: 20-90 yrs) were enrolled in the baseline survey of a longitudinal epidemiological study, and 2 638 of them were reevaluated in 5.5 years later. The Chinese BMI and WHO BF% were used to define obesity, respectively. Results The diagnostic agreement between the Chinese BMI and WHO BF% definitions for obesity was poor for both men (kappa: 0.210, 95% CI: 0.179-0.241) and women (kappa: 0.327, 95% CI: 0.296-0.358). However, BMI had a good correlation with BF% both in men (r: 0.785, P35% for women)(RR: 2.89, 95% CI: 1.43-5.81), or in subjects with high BMI (BMI≥28 kg/m2) (RR: 2.46, 95% CI: 1.31-4.63) when compared to those with low BF% (BF%≤20% for men and≤30% for women) or low BMI (BMI