The high correlation between the majority of obesity indices implies their redundancy, whereas ABSI and HI were relatively independent of BMI and other indices and showed the greatest influence from individual-specific environmental factors, suggesting their potential utility as complementary tools in epidemiological research, clinical risk prediction, and monitoring of targeted interventions.
Key Findings
Results
Strong phenotypic, genetic, shared environmental, and unique environmental correlations were observed among most obesity indices.
Pairwise correlations (rP, rG, rC, rE) were greater than 0.8 among most indices.
The study included 152,298 adult individuals (females = 89,091, 58.4%) from the multi-generational Lifelines cohort study.
Four anthropometric measurements (height, weight, waist and hip circumference) were used to calculate 12 indices of obesity and body fat distribution.
The high correlation between the majority of obesity indices implies their redundancy.
Results
A body shape index (ABSI) and hip index (HI) were weakly correlated with other indices and were largely independent of BMI.
ABSI and HI had phenotypic correlations with other indices of rP < 0.10 with respect to BMI independence.
ABSI and HI were weakly correlated with other indices across phenotypic, genetic, shared environmental, and unique environmental correlation estimates.
These two indices showed the greatest influence from individual-specific (unique) environmental factors among all indices examined.
Results
ABSI and HI had the highest unique environmental variance components among all obesity indices.
Unique environmental factors (e2) accounted for 64.2% of variance in ABSI.
Unique environmental factors (e2) accounted for 75.7% of variance in HI.
These values were notably higher than those for other obesity indices, which were moderately heritable (h2 = 45%–55%).
Results
Height showed the highest heritability among all anthropometric traits and obesity indices examined.
Heritability of height was h2 = 91.7%.
Most other traits showed moderate heritability, with h2 ranging from approximately 45% to 55%.
Variance components attributable to genetic (h2), shared (c2), and unique environmental (e2) factors were estimated using ASReml software.
Results
Genetic and environmental contributions to pairwise phenotypic correlations among obesity indices were quantified.
Pairwise phenotypic (rP), genetic (rG), shared environmental (rC), and unique environmental (rE) correlations were all estimated.
Genetic and environmental contributions to the phenotypic correlations were decomposed and quantified.
Analyses were performed in 152,298 adults from the baseline of the multi-generational Lifelines cohort study.
Ani A, Nolte I, Vaez A, Snieder H. (2026). Contribution of genetic and environmental factors to obesity indices and their overlap.. Diabetes, obesity & metabolism. https://doi.org/10.1111/dom.70530