Correlation between Body Mass Index (BMI) and Waist to Hip Ratio (WHR) among undergraduate students

Body mass index (BMI) is a common, inexpensive and simple method to categorize individuals as underweight, normal weight, overweight, obese I and obese II. However, this method does not reflect body shape and fat distribution. Waist to hip ratio (WHR) is a more recent and accurate method to measure body fat distribution and can be used routinely. The purpose of this study was to compare BMI and WHR of Malaysian undergraduate medical students. The weight, height, waist line and hip line of 82 undergraduate medical students studying at SEGi University, Malaysia were measured and used to calculate BMI and WHR using the standard formula. For males, the highest mean BMI was recorded for Indian students followed by those for Malay and Chinese. However, for males, the highest mean WHR was recorded for Malay followed by those for Chinese and Indian. For females, both mean BMI and WHR were highest for Malay, followed by those for Indian and Chinese. No correlation was found between BMI and WHR among the overall and male participants respectively. However significant correlation was present between BMI and WHR among female participants (r value = 0.623). In conclusion, in this research, there was correlation between BMI and WHR in female population. Therefore the Malaysian females, specially Malay females should be more aware of their health, their food intake and they should take better care of their health, do more physical activity in order to have healthier life and get less exposed to diseases caused by high BMI and WHR.