Where is the beef? Waist circumference is more highly correlated with BMI and total body fat than with abdominal visceral fat in children

Medically accepted ‘facts’ sometimes become outmoded when additional research shows them to be incorrect. This Commentary evaluates the evidence for the measurement of waist circumference (WC) in children and adolescents as a good surrogate for the measurement of abdominal visceral fat (VF) and for assessing the risk for ‘metabolic syndrome’. WC correlates well with total body fat, but does not correlate any better for abdominal VF than does BMI. The use of WC as a marker for VF and for ‘metabolic syndrome’ in children no longer seems valid even in the field or for epidemiological studies.