Recent data published by the Chinese National Diabetes and Metabolic Disorders Research Group (NDMRG) indicate that the prevalence of abdominal obesity, overweight and obesity among Chinese adults is 27.1%, 31.4% and 12.2%, in that order. The combination of the two indicators better assesses the risk of cardiometabolic disorders (CMD) and cardiovascular disease (CVD) than waist circumference (WC) and body mass index (BMI). (PLoS One. 2013,8:e57319) The study enrolled 46 024 adult subjects in China. According to the criteria of the Chinese Joint Committee on Guideline Development and the Chinese Obesity Working Group, 27.1%, 31.4% and 12.2% of adults in China were abdominal obese, overweight and obese, respectively. After correcting for potential confounders, the risk of developing diabetes or diabetes and dyslipidemia was 1.7 and 2.2 times higher for each standard deviation increase in WC than for each standard deviation increase in BMI in Chinese adults, respectively; compared with WC, the effect of BMI on hypertension or hypertension + dyslipidemia was greater, with each standard deviation increase in risk being 2.3 and 1.7 times higher, respectively. The study showed that the value of WC in combination with BMI indicators for assessing CMD risk was significantly higher than the highest values of WC and BMI, for diabetes (corrected OR 2.19, 1.88 and 1.12, in that order), hypertension (corrected OR 5.70, 1.51 and 1.69, in that order) and dyslipidemia (corrected OR 3.73, 2.16 and 1.33, in that order) .