Background
Obesity is associated with various chronic diseases, especially abdominal fat affect cardiovascular disease, metabolic disease, diabetes mellitus and mortality. The aim of this study was to estimate the accuracy of the visceral fat area measured by bioelectric impedence analysis (BIA) that easily used in many clinical settings, and to compare with the visceral fat area measured by CT and other abdominal obesity measures. Methods: Participants were 71 premenopausal adult women whose BMI was over 23 kg/m2. BMI, waist circumference, total abdominal fat area, visceral fat area, subcutaneous fat area by CT and truncal fat by dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DEXA) were measured. Visceral fat area measured by Inbody 720 were compared with variables examining abdominal obesity using partial correlation analysis and Bland-Altman analysis. The accuracy of the visceral obesity by BIA was compared with that diagnosed by CT as gold standard. Results: There was significant difference between visceral fat area measured by CT and BIA in women below BMI 30 kg/m2, whereas the difference was not significant in women with BMI ≥ kg/m2. Visceral fat area measured by BIA was significantly correlated with visceral fat area measured by CT only in subjects with BMI less than 30 kg/m2 after adjusting for age (r = 0.495, P < 0.01). Bland-Altman plot analysis showed a tendency regardless of BMI status; the more visceral fat area increased, the less the difference between two measures. The sensitivity and the specificity to diagnose visceral obesity by BIA was 50.0%, 81.8% respectively among women with BMI less than 30 kg/m2, and 100.0%, 25.0% respectively among women with BMI ≥ 30 kg/m2. Conclusion: BIA is not appropriate for evaluation of abdominal visceral obesity.

Citations

• Development of a sex-specific visceral fat area estimation using discrete multi-wavelength near-infrared spectroscopy measurements in Korean individuals
  Soonhyun Ban, Jihyeon Baek, Soee Choi, Sung-Ho Han
  International Journal of Obesity.2025; 49(4): 627.     CrossRef
• Evaluating the Accuracy and Clinical Utility of Bioelectrical Impedance Analysis (BIA) Devices for Body Composition Measurements in Clinical Practice: Comparison of Four Types of BIA Equipment and Dual-Energy X-ray Absorptiometry
  So Youn LEE, Hwayeon SUN, Sung Hwan BAE, Ju Yeon SON, Byungwook YOO
  Korean Journal of Health Promotion.2025; 25(2): 50.     CrossRef
• Body Composition and Cardiorespiratory Fitness Characteristics Among Female University Students: A Cross-Sectional Study
  Mădălina-Gabriela Coman, Andreea Maria Adam, Carmen Gheorghe, Mircea Dan Mocanu, Leonard Stoica, Daniel-Andrei Iordan, Ilie Onu, Dragoș Florin Teodor
  Balneo and PRM Research Journal.2024; 15(Vol.15, no): 753.     CrossRef
• Radiological dose analysis depending on the examination condition for computed tomography measurement of abdominal body fat
  Jae-Hwan Cho, Hae-Kag Lee, Hyun-Ju Kim
  Computer Methods in Biomechanics and Biomedical Engineering: Imaging & Visualization.2016; 4(6): 368.     CrossRef
• Current Methods of Human Body Composition Assessment
  Jongwoo Kim, Seon Yeong Lee
  The Korean Journal of Obesity.2015; 24(4): 184.     CrossRef
• Age-related changes in body composition in a sample of Czech women aged 18–89 years: a cross-sectional study
  Aleš Gába, Miroslava Přidalová
  European Journal of Nutrition.2014; 53(1): 167.     CrossRef

Background
Bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA) is frequently used to diagnose obesity in clinical setting, but the usefulness of BIA in children is not become known accurately. We analyzed the usefulness of BIA and anthropometric measurement compared with Dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) as a diagnostic tool of childhood obesity. Methods: 205 volunteer primary and middle school children were recruited. We measured weight and height, and analyzed the body composition by BIA and DXA. By paired t-test and Bland-Altman plots, mean difference and limit of agreement were calculated between DXA and BIA according to sex and age groups. Sensitivity and specificity were displayed with the gold standard of PBF above 35% by DXA. Results: There was significantly positive correlation between DXA and BIA in fat mass (FM) (r=0.982, P＜0.001), fat free mass (FFM) (r=0.990, P＜0.001), and percent body fat (PBF) (r=0.956, P＜0.001). Mean difference between DXA and BIA in FM, FFM, and PBF were ⁣0.4⁑1.4 kg (P＜0.001), ⁣0.6⁑1.3 kg (P＜0.001), and 0.5⁑2.8% (P=0.016), respectively. Limit of agreement in FM, FFM, and PBF were ⁣0.4⁑2.7 kg, ⁣0.6⁑2.5 kg, and 0.5⁑5.5%, respectively. The most sensitive method of diagnosis of obesity was Korean BMI standards for 85 percentile (94.7%) and IOTF BMI 25 kg/m² (94.7%). The sensitivity and specificity by BIA were 90.7% and 97.7%. Conclusions: BIA was not interchangeable with DXA. However because of higher diagnostic accuracy and correlation, it could be used to measure body composition as simple field method. We recommend Korean BMI standards for 85 percentile or IOTF BMI 25 kg/m² as the screening test for diagnosis of Korean childhood obesity. (J Korean Acad Fam Med 2007;28:523-531)

Background
: InBody 4.0, a bioelectrical impedance analyser (BIA) has an automatic function of printing out the measurement data of visceral fat area. The purpose of this study was to assess the usefulness of the visceral obesity measured by the InBody 4.0 and the waist circumference

Methods : A total of 124 participants who visited an obesity clinic in a university hospital were measured their waist circumference, height, weight and the visceral fat area by the InBody 4.0 and CT scan. The mean difference and agreement between the two visceral fat areas by the two methods had been analyzed according to sex, age and BMI groups. The accuracy of the visceral obesity by the BIA and the waist circumference was respectively compared with the visceral obesity by the CT scan.

Results : There was no significant difference between visceral fat area measured by the CT and the BIA in women participants under 46 years of age and below BMI 30. When comparing visceral fat area obtained from the CT with those obtained from the BIA, the 95% confidence interval for the limit agreement was higher in male subjects than in females. The waist circumference was the more sensitive method to diagnose visceral obesity than the BIA (91.80% vs. 77.94%), but the BIA method showed a higher specificity than the waist circumference (76.79% vs 52.38%).

Conclusion : Waist circumference turned out to be more useful than the BIA as a screening tool for visceral obesity. In the group of males, BMI of over 30, or the age over 46 years, it is recommended that the CT rather than the BIA for measurement of visceral fat area be utiliged.

Background
: Obesity has been generally diagnosed by 'Body Mass Index (BMI)' in primary care. Recently the use of Bioelectrical Impedance Analyzer' has become popular in Korea to evaluate body fat rate (BFR), as cost is inexpensive and the method to use is simple. As a result, the opposed finding of normal BMI and elevated BFR vice versa in same individuals are being encountered frequently. We designed this study to find out the characteristics and cardiovascular risk of people in these groups.

Methods : The medical records of health promotion center were obtained and 22,704 applicants visitor who undeerwent health risk questionnaire, screening tests and physical examination for cardiovascular disease were reviewed.

Results : After adjusting for age, sex, exercise and education level, cardiovascular risk such as hypertension, DM, and hypercholesterolemia, LDL tended to increase linearly and HDL tended to decrease linearly with increase of BFR or BMI. In comparison with normal BMI and BFR group, the odds ratios of normal BMI and elevated BFR group or vice versa were increased.

Conclusion : If either one of BMI or BFR of a person was elevated, even though the other was within normal range, the cardiovascular risk of that person was shown to be high.