OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study was to compare the sex-specific diagnostic performance of traditional anthropometric indices, including Body Mass Index (BMI), Waist Circumference (WC), Waist-Hip Ratio (WHR), and Waist-to-Height Ratio (WHtR), with novel indices such as A Body Shape Index (ABSI), Body Roundness Index (BRI), Abdominal Volume Index (AVI), Weight-Adjusted Waist Index (WWI), Body Adiposity Index (BAI), Conicity Index (CI), and Waist-Hip-Height Ratio (WHHR) in predicting the Metabolically Obese Normal Weight (MONW) phenotype in adults. METHODS: < 0.05). ROC analysis revealed that among women, WHtR (AUC: 0.715, 95% CI: 0.598-0.832) among traditional indices and BRI (AUC: 0.712, 95% CI: 0.594-0.830) among novel indices showed fair predictive ability, while other indices demonstrated weak or no predictive power. In men, all indices exhibited poor or no performance in predicting the MONW phenotype. CONCLUSION: These findings suggest that anthropometric indices alone have limited capacity to identify MONW, especially in men, emphasizing the importance of comprehensive, multi-parameter assessments to detect high-risk normal-weight adults.
Tari et al. (Tue,) studied this question.