Background: The imbalance between the energy ingested in food and expended can lead to obesity. It is regarded as one of the most prominent but ignored public health issues of today and threatens to inundate the health care resources through increasing clinical consequences and additionally as a financial burden. Hence, the identity of individuals with health dangers using easy, surrogate measures to estimate excess adiposity becoming very important. In this regard, the purpose of this study is to evaluate the incidence of obesity, considering commonly used obesity measures, and also to discern the best obesity predictor among the adult Bengalee females of West Bengal, India.

Research Method: Participants included 210 healthy adult Bengalee women (mean age 43.06 ± 3.4 years). Following standard procedure, anthropometric measures were taken for height, weight, hip circumference, and waist circumference. Waist-to-hip and waist-to-stature ratios were then computed. A fat monitor was used to calculate body fat percentage.

Results: Out of all the adiposity measures, Waist Circumference (r = 0.78, P<0.001), Hip Circumference (r = 0.74, P<0.001), and Waist Hip Ratio (r = 0.72, P<0.001), the results showed that Waist Stature Ratio had the largest positive connection (r = 0.88, P<0.001) with Percent Body fat.

Conclusion: Therefore, the current study indicated that among Asian Indian middle-aged women, WSR may be the most appropriate marker for PBF.

Arup Ratan Bandyopadhyay is a Professor and Former Head, department of anthropology, University of Calcutta, India. He has over three decades of teaching and research experience in evolutionary biology, forensic anthropology, cytogenetics, and medical genetics. A recipient of multiple national awards, he has guided numerous Ph.D. scholars and authored over 100 publications. His ongoing ICSSR project focuses on chronic non-communicable diseases in Eastern and North-Eastern India.