Evaluation of body adiposity index (BAI) to estimate percent body fat in an indigenous population

Background & aims: The aim of this study was to evaluate the usefulness of Body Adiposity Index (BAI) as a predictor of body fat in Xavante Indians and to investigate which anthropometric measures of adiposity best correlate with body fat in this population. Methods: We evaluated 974 individuals (476 male), aged 423 +/- 19.5 years. Percentage of body fat (%BF) determined by bioimpedance analysis (BIA) was used as the reference measure of adiposity. Bland-Altman analysis was used to assess the agreement between the two methods: BAI and BIA. Associations between anthropometric measures of adiposity were investigated by Pearson correlation analysis. Results: BAI overestimates %BF (mean difference: 4.10%), mainly at lower levels of adiposity. Significant correlations were found between %BF and all measurements, being the strongest correlation with BAI. However, stratified analyses according to gender showed that among men waist circumference has the strongest correlation (r = 0.73, p <0.001) and among women BAI (r = 0.71, p < 0.001), BMI (r = 0.69, p < 0.001) and waist circumference (r = 0.70, p < 0.001) performed similarly. Conclusion: BAI can be a useful tool to predict %BF in Xavante Indians, although it has some limitations. However, it is not a better predictor of adiposity than waist circumference in men or BMI and waist circumference in women. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd and European Society for Clinical Nutrition and Metabolism. All rights reserved.