Body shape: Implications in the study of obesity and related traits

Abstract

Based on the growing advancement of computer techniques that allow describing or predicting characteristics from different data representations and taking as a starting point the growing obesity and overweight epidemic decreed by the World Health Organization. A method of 3D segmentation of body scans is proposed that, together with geometric morphometric techniques, allows to quantify the distribution of adipose tissue in the abdomen. Specifically, a set of body circumferences was analyzed, each one defined from anatomically positioned landmarks. Subsequently, a principal component analysis was calculated to compare the shape variables with the anthropometric data (weight, height and waist and hip circumference). The shape indicators generated from this new approach are correlated with the behavior of the classic markers: Body Mass Index, Waist-Hip Index, Waist-Height Index.