Anthropometry in cardio-metabolic risk assessment

High prevalence of obesity, as a major public health problem, is connected with chronic cardiovascular and metabolic diseases. That is why some simple anthropometric parameters were developed to estimate overweight and obesity, and in the primary screening of risk groups. In this field, body mass index (BMI) is the most frequent parameter, both in epidemiological research and in everyday practice. It is a part of the algorithm used in the early detection of overweight and obese persons. However, BMI does not provide any data on body composition. This is why it is particularly insufficient in estimating body mass in physically active persons and in athletes who are often overweight, with a higher proportion of lean body mass but without any excess fat, as well as in those with normal weight but lower than normal lean body mass and/or gentle skeleton. Over the last few decades, attention has been especially directed to different body fat distribution in relation to chronic cardio-vascular and metabolic diseases. Waist circumference (WC) is the best anthropometric predictor of cardiovascular risk. It is considered an indirect parameter of visceral fat. WC and waist-to-hip ratio are good parameters showing body fat distribution and cardio-metabolic risk. Waist-to-height ratio is suggested by some authors to be an even better parameter of cardio-vascular risk and metabolic syndrome. Hypertriglyceridemia combined with increased WC is considered a marker of atherogenic metabolic risk. The paper also deals with procedures of body composition analysis. Anthropometric assessment of body composition analysis belongs to a group of simple and inexpensive procedures. Development of generalised equations for body density prediction introduced anthropometric methods in the analysis of body composition in everyday practice.