Body shape index

A Body Shape Index (ABSI) or simply body shape index (BSI) is a metric for assessing a person's risk of premature death using their height, weight (mass), and waist circumference.

The inclusion of waist circumference is believed to make the ABSI a better indicator of risk of mortality from excess weight than the widely used body mass index (BMI). ABSI correlates only slightly with height, weight, and BMI, indicating that it is independent of other anthropometric variables in predicting mortality.

A person's ABSI is given by the formula

$${\displaystyle ABSI={\frac {WC}{{\sqrt[{3}]{BMI\,}}\times {\sqrt[{3}]{BMI\,}}\times {\sqrt {H\,}}}}}$$

where ${\displaystyle WC}$ is waist circumference (in metres), ${\displaystyle H}$ is height (in metres), and ${\displaystyle BMI}$ is body mass index.

This can be written more formally as

$${\displaystyle ABSI={\frac {WC}{BMI^{2/3}\times H^{1/2}}}}$$

where ${\displaystyle WC}$, ${\displaystyle H}$ and ${\displaystyle BMI}$ have the same meanings as above.