Body Mass Index (BMI) and Waist to Height Ratio (WHTR) for Prediction of Cardiovascular Diseases: Women at Higher Risk than Men in Jos

Abstract

The problem of cardiac arrest and stroke in humans leading to paralysis or death are known to relate to the risk for certain diseases such as heart disease, high blood pressure, type II diabetes, gallstone, breathing problems and certain cancers. The risk for such diseases in turn, is correlated to the Body Mass Index (BMI) and Waist to Height Ratio (WHtR) which are strong indicators of visceral/abdominal fat which accumulates around the internal organs affecting the heart, liver and kidneys. However, it is not known whether these major risk factors are higher in males or females. In this work, the weights, heights and waists of 50 volunteers (25 males and 25 females) were carried out on people whose ages ranged between 19 and 75 years with the aid of a weighing balance and a measuring tape. Results show that the Body Mass Indices (BMI) of males ranged between 18.29 and 30.70kg/m2 while that of females ranged between 19.05 and 39.11kg/m2. Waist to Height Ratios for males ranged between 0.4331 and 0.6954 while that for females ranged between 0.4310 and 0.7746. The 2-tailed Pearson correlation coefficient between sex and BMI 0.299, 0.05 and that between sex and WHtR 0.379, 0.01 , both show that females are at more risk than males. Also, BMI and WHtR correlated strongly 0.909, 0.01 showing that they are good proxy for body fat percentage. An effective BMI incorporating WHtR was empirically derived.