Comparison of different methods of body assessing in cats

• Main Authors: Karina Preising Aptekmann, Aguinaldo Francisco Mendes Junior, Camila Bonna Passo, Mirela Coqueiro Secchin, Marcos Alexandre Ventorin Galeas
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Sociedade de Medicina Veterinária do Estado do Rio de Janeiro 2014-06-01
• Series: Brazilian Journal of Veterinary Medicine
• Online Access: http://rbmv.org/index.php/BJVM/article/view/496

ABSTRACT. Aptekmann K.P., Mendes-Junior A.F., Passos C.B., Secchin M.C. & Galeas M.A.V. [Comparison of different methods of body assessing in cats.] Comparação dos diferentes métodos de avaliação corporal em felinos. Revista Brasileira de Medicina Veterinária, 36(2):215-218, 2014. Departamento de Medicina Veterinária, Centro de Ciências Agrárias, Universidade Federal do Espírito Santo (UFES), Alto Universitário, s/n, Caixa Postal 16, Guararema, Alegre, ES 29500-000, Brasil. E-mail: [e-mail] Obesity or overweight are usually not difficult to recognize in cats, but the correct diagnosis is necessary, requiring some methods of quantification. There is no ideal method for determination of obesity in cats. This study aimed to compare different methods of assessing body condition. A total of 50 domiciled cats were used and body condition score (BCS), body weight (BW), body mass index (BMI), percentage of body fat (%BF) and waist circumference (WC) were determined for each cat. Through the Spearman correlation test, considering a level of significance of 5%, it was found all methods of body assessing correlate to each other. However, morphometric measurements were not considered useful for the diagnosis of obesity in cats. Feline BMI was adapted from human and can be used as an easy and less subjective method than ECC. It is proposed that further studies are conducted in an attempt to use WC measurement as a parameter indicative of metabolic syndrome in cats.