Universal Journal of Public Health Vol. 3(1), pp. 16 - 21
DOI: 10.13189/ujph.2015.030103
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Using Waist Circumference Measurements to Enhance the Public's Understanding of Childhood Obesity: Accounting for Health Literacy

Madelyn P. Law ^1,*, John Hay ¹, Brent E. Faught ¹, John Cairney ^2
1 Department of Health Sciences, Brock University, St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada, L2S3A1
² Department of Family Medicine, McMaster University, McMaster Innovation Park, 175 Longwood Road South, Suite 201A, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, L8P 0A1

ABSTRACT

This study examined the extent to which the measurement of waist circumference (WC) can categorize overweight/obesity status similarly to BMI in children. Height and weight were measured and BMI was calculated for participants' age 9 to 11 years old. Children were classified as either normal-weight, overweight, or obese. WC was measured twice and the average of these measures recorded. Receiver-operator characteristic curves were computed for each age and gender for both overweight and obese using BMI as the standard. For each analysis the area under the curve was used as an overall indicator of agreement between the two measures. WC achieved very strong sensitivity for both overweight and obesity for both genders, ranging from .90 to .93. Specificity for obesity for both genders was very strong, ranging from .89 to .93 for girls and from .90 to .93 for boys. While specificity for obese remains high for both genders (.89 - .93) across all three years, the specificity for overweight fell to .68 to .84 for boys and to .66 to .74 for girls. Due to low levels of health literacy in the population, using WC may provide an easy to understand measure of obese or overweight status.

KEYWORDS
Health Literacy, Obesity, Body Mass Index, Waist Circumference

Cite This Paper in IEEE or APA Citation Styles
(a). IEEE Format:
[1] Madelyn P. Law , John Hay , Brent E. Faught , John Cairney , "Using Waist Circumference Measurements to Enhance the Public's Understanding of Childhood Obesity: Accounting for Health Literacy," Universal Journal of Public Health, Vol. 3, No. 1, pp. 16 - 21, 2015. DOI: 10.13189/ujph.2015.030103.

(b). APA Format:
Madelyn P. Law , John Hay , Brent E. Faught , John Cairney (2015). Using Waist Circumference Measurements to Enhance the Public's Understanding of Childhood Obesity: Accounting for Health Literacy. Universal Journal of Public Health, 3(1), 16 - 21. DOI: 10.13189/ujph.2015.030103.